External characters
Thickly lobate, massive, bulbous-encrusting sponge with lobes/bulbs fused to adjacent bulbs, between 20-55mm diameter, up to about 40mm high, spreading about 120mm across dead coral substrate.
Colour
Pale yellow-brown or khaki-brown alive (Munsell 2.5Y 8/10), often partially silt-covered, dark brown in ethanol.
Skeletal Characters
| Oscules | Large oscules situated on apex of bulbs, 2-8mm diameter, with slightly raised rims, contracting to smaller diameter when preserved. |
| Texture | Compressible, slimy, highly toxic mucus (topical dermatitis and local pain) |
| Surface_Ornamentation | Well developed sculpturing, consisting of close-set, interconnected microconules, forming web-like striations on surface. |
| Ectosomal_Skeleton | Ectosome membranous, lightly arenaceous, with abundant heavily pigmented spongin, but without specialised spicule skeleton. Irregular plumose tufts of choanosomal strongyles protrude through surface, paratangential or erect on surface, more-or-less corresponding to position of surface conules; ectosome rarely intact in preserved material. |
| Choanosomal_Skeleton | Skeletal architecture reticulate, with differentiated primary (multispicular) and secondary (uni- and paucispicular) spongin fibres. Primary fibres usually fully cored with choanosomal strongyles, 50-90µm diameter; secondary fibres with fewer spicules packed abreast, 15-40µm diameter. Fibre reticulation produces elongate, oblong or oval meshes, 35-140µm diameter, with moderate quantities of collagen and foreign particles, and abundant microscleres. Choanocyte chambers not observed, obscured by foreign debris, microscleres and loose megascleres. |
| Megascleres | Choanosomal strongyles long, thick or thin, slightly curved, symmetrical or asymmetrical (218-(257.3)-280 x 3-(5.7)-9). |
| Microscleres | Microxeas clearly divided into two sizes, both relatively long, stout, widest at midsection (I:28-(38.0)-51 x 0.5-(0.9)-1.2; II:69-(79.1)-94 x 0.8-(1.6)-2.0). Raphides abundant, long, straight, hair like (79-(86.5)-115 x 0.2-(0.6)-0.8). Sigmas incompletel |
| Mudmap_Author | J Hooper |
| Mudmap_Editor | K Hall |
Distribution
In French Polynesia: Society and Austral islands.
Pacific Ocean: Fiji, Australia, New Caledonia, Micronesia
Ecology and habitat
In a mudy bay, on dead corals.
J Hooper (2014). QM0928 Neofibularia hartmani Hooper & Lévi, 1993. In: Hall, K.A. & Hooper, J.N.A. (2014) SpongeMaps: an online community for taxonomy and identification of sponges. (Available at http://www.spongemaps.org).