Biverticillus, Payne & Samaai & Kelly, 2022

Payne, Robyn, Samaai, Toufiek & Kelly, Michelle, 2022, New Latrunculiidae genus (Porifera, Poecilosclerida) from the Madagascar Ridge, Zootaxa 5105 (2), pp. 296-300 : 296

Genus Biverticillus gen. nov.

Type species. Biverticillus tenuissimus gen. et sp. nov., designated herein.

Diagnosis. Very thinly encrusting sponges with undulating but smooth surface, and soft texture; easily torn. Choanosome composed of thin, small subtylostyles in tracts that diverge and radiate from base to surface. Ectosome a dense tangential layer of megascleres, above which sits an irregular palisade of microscleres oriented in different directions. Microscleres are anisospinodiscorhabds with a stout shaft bearing an apical whorl with solitary (rarely bifurcate) spines, and a basal manubrium with bifurcate spines, each differing from the other slightly in the angle of repose of the spines. The median and subsidiary whorls are centrally located, equally spaced between each other and the apical whorl and manubrium and are mostly equidiametral. All whorl spines are themselves heavily spined.

Etymology. Named for Latrunculiidae with a new form of microsclere, the anisospinodiscorhabd, with two centrally located, equally spaced whorls of acanthose spines, between apical and basal substructures (biverticillus, double whorl; Latin).