Schmidtia intermedia Czerniavsky, 1880

Van Soest, Rob W. M., 2024, Correcting sponge names: nomenclatural update of lower taxa level Porifera, Zootaxa 5398 (1), pp. 1-122 : 45-46

Schmidtia intermedia Czerniavsky, 1880

Schmidtia intermedia Czerniavsky, 1880: 105 (no illustration).

Petrosia clavata ; Swartschevsky 1905: 11.

Petrosia (Petrosia) intermedia ; Ereskovsky et al. 2018: 21 (listed only).

The species Schmidtia intermedia Czerniavsky, 1880 was erected with a question mark, indicating that the author was uncertain of its generic status. Schmidtia Balsamo-Crivelli, 1863: 8 is currently considered a junior synonym of Petrosia Vosmaer, 1885: 338 , but Czerniavsky apparently thought that the species was close to if not congeneric with his genus Protoschmidtia (= currently Haliclona ). He distinguished four varieties of the present species, the differences of which are unclear (due also to the combined language of Latin and Russian). Only for two varieties he mentioned spicule sizes. These sizes, 100–170 x 7–10 µm, are not characteristic for the genus Petrosia Vosmaer, 1885 , conforming more to those found to in Haliclona Grant, 1841 or Neopetrosia De Laubenfels, 1949 . A typical variety was not indicated, so I propose here to take the first mentioned variety Schmidtia . intermedia var. similis as the nominotypical variety, which name is subsequently to be fixed as S. intermedia var. intermedia Czerniavsky, 1880 (ICZN art. 47.1). No varieties were mentioned by authors citing Black Sea sponges in subsequent publications. According to the curator of the Cnidaria collection of the Zoological Museum of St. Petersburg (ZIN-RAS) there are type specimens of three of the four varieties: Schmidtia intermedia var. horhippiana Czerniavsky, 1880 , Schmidtia intermedia var. similis Czerniavsky, 1880 (= S. intermedia var. intermedia ), and Schmidtia intermedia var. taurica Czerniavsky, 1880 . Only of Schmidtia intermedia var. dioscuriae type material was not identified. In view of the unrecognizable descriptions and differences of these varieties, I propose to merge them into a single species until the type specimens have been re-examined and their identity properly determined.

Even though the genus affiliation is doubtful I propose to maintain the genus as currently assigned by Swartchevsky 1905 as Petrosia and accordingly name the collective species Petrosia (Petrosia) intermedia ( Czerniavsky, 1880) as it is not yet clear that Swartschevsky’s (1905) proposed junior synonymy with Petrosia (Petrosia) clavata ( Esper, 1794) has merit.

Schmidtia Balsamo-Crivelli, 1863 is a nomen oblitum in the sense of ICZN art. 23.9, and is a synonym of the Petrosia Vosmaer, 1885 , cf. Van Soest et al. 2020: 64.