Cliona microstrongylata Carballo & Cruz-Barraza, 2005

Pacheco, Cristian, Carballo, José Luis, Cortés, Jorge, Segovia, Johanna & Trejo, Alejandra, 2018, Excavating sponges from the Pacific of Central America, descriptions and a faunistic record, Zootaxa 4370 (5), pp. 451-491 : 462

Cliona microstrongylata Carballo & Cruz-Barraza, 2005

Material examined. ICMYL. Cmi. 45.IB: Isla Bolaños, Bahía Salinas , Costa Rica, 8 m, 4.XII.2012, coll. and det. Cristian Pacheco Solano . ICMYL. Cmi. 31.PL: Playa Mantas , Costa Rica, <3 m, 23.XII.2012, coll. and det. Cristian Pacheco Solano . ICMYL. Cmi. 37.PL: Playa Mantas , Costa Rica, <3 m, 23.XII.2012, coll. and det. Cristian Pacheco Solano . Los Cobanos , ICMARES. UES.CI.70: Playa Las Veraneras, Los Cóbanos, El Salvador, <3 m, 25.X.2016, coll. Alejandra Trejo, det. José Luis Carballo .

External morphology. Endolithic sponge in alpha morphology. No observations available on distribution and sizes of papillae. Live color orange.

Excavation. Samples too small to assess bioerosion traces.

Spicules. Megascleres slightly curved tylostyles, microscleres kidney- or C-shaped microstrongyles ( Fig. 11 ). Tylostyle dimensions: 12 2–284 µm (x̅ =176.2, σ=39.4) x 2.2–9.7 µm (x̅ =5.4, σ=2.4). Microstrongyle dimensions: 14.9–29.7 µm (x̅ =20.7, σ=4.7) x 2.6–16.6 µm (x̅ =7.4, σ=4.2).

Ecology. Found in dead shells and coral skeleton of Pocillopora sp., between 3 and 8 m depth.

Distribution and previous records. The species was originally described ( Carballo & Cruz-Barraza 2005) and was again observed from the Gulf of California ( Carballo et al. 2008b; Vega 2012). It is presently reported for the Pacific of El Salvador and Costa Rica ( Fig. 12 ). This new record extends the distribution of this species.

Remarks. Due to the characteristic kidney-shaped microstrongyles C. microstrongylata is easy to identify. It has only recently been described in detail ( Carballo & Cruz-Barraza 2005), and we provided only a short taxonomic account to illustrate the present identification.

Figures

FIGURE 11. Spicules of Cliona microstrongylata: A) tylostyles in different sizes, and B) microstrongyles and one enlarged head of tylostyle.

FIGURE 12. Distribution of Cliona microstrongylata in the study area.