Higginsia coralloides var. liberiensis Higgin, 1877

Van Soest, Rob W. M., 2024, Correcting sponge names: nomenclatural update of lower taxa level Porifera, Zootaxa 5398 (1), pp. 1-122 : 49

Higginsia coralloides var. liberiensis Higgin, 1877

Higginsia coralloides var. liberiensis Higgin, 1877: 293 (no illustration).

Higginsia liberiensis ; Van Soest 1987: 24.

The variety was described by Higgin as dredged from the sea bottom off the West African locality Cape Palmas, Liberia, approximate coordinates 4.37°N 7.73°W, depth not recorded. Type material of H. liberiensis has not been identified with certainty so far. The Natural History Museum Data Portal has one specimen labeled as H. coralloides var. liberiensis, BMNH 1933.8.5.1, but it was collected in rock pools on the ‘Gold Coast’ (= Ghana) by a different collector than given in Higgin’s original paper. The type material has possibly been destroyed during WWII when the Liverpool Free Museum was bombed. It was erected largely on the basis of spicule differences with the typical variety also described by Higgin (1877: 291) from Carinage Harbour, Grenada, Eastern Caribbean, approximate coordinates 12.13°N 61.76°W, depth not recorded but obtained “by diving” (type slide BMNH 1886.12.15.92, fide Hooper 2002: 763). The species was also subsequently reported from Florida, North Carolina, Bahamas, Yucatan, Guyana coast. The shape (fan-like mass of interconnected branches) is similar in both, the main skeletal spicules are similar robust oxeas of about 650 x 20–33 µm, and both have additional thin anisoxeas. However, the acanthomicroxeas of the present variety are only about half the size (averaging 75 x 6 µm) of those of the typical variety (averaging 140 x 4 µm, cf. Van Soest 2017: 55). Apparently there is also a color difference between the varieties as Higgin (1877: 293) mentioned, as well as a difference in texture. In view of the geographic separation by the deep Atlantic, I confirm here as valid the casual elevation of the present variety to species level as Higginsia liberiensis Higgin, 1877 by Van Soest (1987: 24).

Burton (1956: 133) assigned the present species/variety along with almost all other Higginsia species to the synonymy of Higginsia strigilata ( Lamarck, 1814) , but this conclusion has not been followed by the sponge colleague. Burton mentioned two ‘typical’ specimens from West African waters (9.3833°N 15.1167°W and 9.4667°N 14.9667°W) from depths of 30– 45 m. It is likely that his specimens belong to H. liberiensis .