Haliclona (Gellius) cf. cucurbitiformis (Kirkpatrick, 1907)

(Figure 11j–p)

Restricted synonymy: Gellius cucurbitiformis Kirkpatrick, 1907, Adocia cucurbitiformis (Kirkpatrick, 1907) .

Material examined: 1 specimen collected at station 1 (SOI; 60°28'S, 46°29'W; 139 m; 19/2/2014; MACN-In 44364; IEO-CSIC Col.) .

Description: The specimen is massive, friable, beige, with an irregular surface (Figure 11j). The skeleton consisted of axial parallel ascending fibres interconnected by secondary fibres or spicules in a subquadrangular mesh, (Figure 11m –p). The ectosome is a detachable crust, evident in several parts of our specimen. Spicules are oxeas 330–400 µm by 10 µm and sparse thin C-sigmata of 30–40 µm by 1–2 µm (Figure 11k–l).

Remarks: This is an uncommon species, only recorded by Kirkpatrick (1907), Desqueyroux (1975), Vacelet & Arnaud (1972) and Burton (1932) (this last publication with no description). The studied specimen presented oxeas and sigmas in a similar size range to those described by Kirkpatrick (1907) and Desqueyroux (1975), but the general morphology of the specimen is massive and different from those previously described. In this sense, we prefer to keep the “cf.” (conferre). The specimens described by Vacelet & Arnaud (1972) presented a larger size of spicules than the present specimen.