Agelas schmidti Wilson, 1902

Rützler, Klaus, Piantoni, Carla, Van, Rob W. M. & Díaz, Cristina, 2014, Diversity of sponges (Porifera) from cryptic habitats on the Belize barrier reef near Carrie Bow Cay, Zootaxa 3805 (1), pp. 1-129 : 77

Agelas schmidti Wilson, 1902

Synonymy and References. Agelas schmidti Wilson, 1902: 398 . Parra-Velandia et al., 2014: 329, fig.12 (including synonymy).

Material. USNM 1191328, Carrie Bow Cay, forereef cave, 18 m; K. Ruetzler, col. 19 May 1979. USNM 1191329, Curlew Bank, framework cave, 20 m; C. Piantoni, col. 1 July 2007. USNM 1229098, Curlew Bank, forereef slope (wall), 50-150 cm inside framework cave, ceiling, 20 m; C. Piantoni & M. Parrish, col. 22 Aug 2012. USNM 1229099 Curlew Bank forereef slope (wall), framework cave, 18 m; C. Piantoni & M. Parrish, col. 25 Aug 2012.

External morphology. Coalescent tubes filling coral crevices and protruding as hollow cones (1–3 cm at the base) and tapering to terminal oscula, 4–10 mm in diameter. The base is yellow orange, exposed apical parts are orange red.

Skeleton structure. Interconnected spongin fibers, cored and echinated by spicules.

Spicules. Acanthostyles with spines in whorls. They measure 103–230 x 8–20 (151 x 16) Μm, with 9–15 (13) whorls; spines can be reduced in length or missing along the mid-portion of the spicules.

Ecology. Common in small framework caves on the forereef, 18– 20 m. Exposed surfaces are generally covered by encrusting coralline algae and sponges, for instance the bright red Clathria campecheae .

Distribution. The species is common throughout the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico (Rützler et al., 2009; Parra-Velandia et al., 2014).

Comments. We compared the spicules with those of the holotype from St. Thomas, U. S. Virgin Islands, and found them to be nearly identical in dimensions and number of whorls, as well as reduction of spines in the center region of some.