Redescription of the rare species Podospongia loveni (Porifera) from the Cantabrian Sea

Podospongia [du Bocage, B., 1869. Eponges siliceuses nouvelles du Portugal et de l'Ile Saint-Iago (Archipel de Cap-Vert). Jornal de Sciencias mathematicas, physicas e naturais 2, 159-162], which at present includes only five species, is a rare genus generally found in deeper waters down to 600 m depth from Natal coast in South Africa, to New Caledonia, the Central and North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. Species of this genus are characterised by a choanosomal skeleton composed of tracts of megascleres radiating from a centrum and stipitate body. Microscleres are spinorhabds and aciculospinorhabds packed in a vertical arrangement in the ectosome and scattered throughout choanosome. As a result of two oceanographic projects (Ecomarg, date; Cocace, date) on the continental shelf of the Cantabrian Sea, ten stipitate sponge specimens were collected and assigned to Podospongia loveni [du Bocage, B., 1869. Eponges siliceuses nouvelles du Portugal et de l'Ile Saint-Iago (Archipel de Cap-Vert). Jornal de Sciencias mathematicas, physicas e naturais 2, 159-162]. Since the holotype was destroyed [Kelly, M., Samaai, T., 2002. Family Podospongiidae de Laubenfels, 1936. In: Hooper, J.N.A., Soest, RW.M., (Eds.), Systema Porifera: A Guide to the Classification of Sponges, New York, pp. 694-702] and with the existence of several specimens from a close region, we hereby redescribe this species. scanning electron microscopy pictures of the spicules and skeletal architecture of P. loveni are for the first time provided. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.