External characters
elongate tubulo-digit cylindrical bulbous fistules arising from a massive or bulbous common burrowing base
Colour
grey on deck, white to cream in ethanol.
Skeletal Characters
| Oscules | few, irregularly ovoid, 1–3 mm (d), sparse, on small protuberances. |
| Texture | hispid, tearable, barely compressible, breaks with pressure, resilient, surface sandpapery. |
| Surface_Ornamentation | surface optically smooth and even with detritus embedded only in the basal portion, ectosome pulls away roughly; microconulose and microscopically hispid. |
| Ectosomal_Skeleton | ectosome membraneous but with tips of the larger strongyloxeas protruding and forming brushes and a thick palisade; subectosome with large spaces seen between the ascending plumose columns of spicules. |
| Choanosomal_Skeleton | more-or-less halichondroid reticulate but with a strong plumose component closer to the surface, minimal collagen |
| Megascleres | strongyloxeas: 4 classes class 1: dominant, predominantly strongyles, thick, slightly bent, abruptly rounded stepped tips, blunt, 600–650 × 12 μm; class 2: thin, slightly bent, rounded tips, tapered, sharper than class 1 oxeas, ends stepped, 580–640 × 3–4 μm; class 3: thick, shorter, rounded tips, blunt, ~500 μm; class 4: very fine fusiform tips, ~550 μm |
| Microscleres | nil. |
| Mudmap_Author | K Hall |
| Mudmap_Editor | Kathryn Hall |
Distribution
In French Polynesia: Tuamotu islands and Tahiti
Ecology and habitat
Outer reef slope.
K Hall (2014). QM4720 Halichondria (Halichondria) sp. (OTU QM4720) . 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).
