Haliclona Grant, 1841

Kelly, Michelle & Rowden, Ashley A., 2019, New sponge species from hydrothermal vent and cold seep sites off New Zealand, Zootaxa 4576 (3), pp. 401-438 : 404

Genus Haliclona Grant, 1841

Type species. Spongia oculata Pallas, 1766: 1348 (by original designation).

Diagnosis. Cushion-shaped, frequently with oscular mounds or chimneys, branching, tube-shaped, repent ramose, rarely thinly entrusting sponges. Colour purple, violet, pink, brown, yellowish, green, blue, black, sometimes white, orange, red. Some species show a two-colour combination of whitish ectosome and darker, purple or brownish choanosome. Consistency varying from soft, fragile, to firm, elastic, brittle or corky. Surface rather smooth and even, slightly to rather strongly punctate, sometimes slightly hispid. Oscula usually circular, flush with the surface or at the top of oscular mounds or chimneys. Ectosomal skeleton, if present, either a regular, tangential, unispicular, isotropic reticulation, with three- to six-sided meshes, or less regular, subisotropic and rather dense or consisting of a discontinuous, rather open reticulation due to many rounded meshes. Choanosomal skeleton a regular, frequently ladder-like reticulation, of uni-, pauci-, or multispicular primary lines, regularly connected by unispicular secondary lines; it may also be rather dense, subisotropic reticulation with many subdermal and choanosomal spaces. Spongin is nearly always present, confined to the nodes of spicules or more abundant, sometimes forming the dominant part of the skeleton. Megascleres, smooth diactins, oxeas or strongyles, length usually between 80–250 µm, with a thickness of ca. 5–10 µm, rarely larger, up to 370 × 15 µm. Microscleres, if present, sigmas, toxas, raphides or microxeas (de Weerdt 2002).