Sarcotragus foetidus Schmidt, 1862

Manconi, Renata, Cadeddu, Barbara, Ledda, Fabio & Pronzato, Roberto, 2013, An overview of the Mediterranean cave-dwelling horny sponges (Porifera, Demospongiae), ZooKeys 281, pp. 1-68 : 27-28

Sarcotragus foetidus Schmidt, 1862 Fig. 21

Sarcotragus foetidus Schmidt, 1862: 36.

Description.

Growth form irregularly massive to globular (up to 1 m in diameter, 50 cm in height); oscules large (0.5-1 cm in diameter) with a short collar, often grouped in a central depression at the top of the body. Consistency soft and strong. Colour is medium grey, but brown or black varieties have been also recorded ( Vacelet 1959). Surface is smooth or covered by several epizoans. Conules are 2-3 mm high and 10-15 mm apart. Dry specimens become very hard and smaller (1/5) than living ones, also colour changes regularly into black. The skeleton does not differ from the other Mediterranean species belonging to the genus; the main skeleton composed by a reticulate network of primary (ca. 100-200 µm in diameter) and secondary (ca. 50-100 µm in diameter) fibres. Filaments abundant (1-3 µm in diameter).

Habitat.

Cave, rocky, detritic and muddy bottom, coralligenous community. Bathymetric range 3-400 m.

Mediterranean Caves.

Blava, Calamars, Meda Petita, Petita de la Vaca caves (Balearic Sea); Mago Cave (Central Tyrrhenian Sea); Taccio Vecchio 1 Cave-Lampedusa*, Tabarka Tunnel (Sicily Channel); Croatian caves (Northern Adriatic Sea); Viole Cave (Southern Adriatic Sea); Chios 213, Trypia Spilia, Farà, Agios Vasilios caves (Aegean Sea) ( Pansini et al. 1977; Bibiloni et al. 1984a; Uriz et al. 1992; Voultsiadou-Koukoura and Koukouras 1993; Ben Mustapha et al. 2002; Pronzato and Manconi 2011; Bakran-Petricioli et al. 2012; Cadeddu 2012; Gerovasileiou and Voultsiadou 2012).