Abyssocladia escheri

Description: Growth form: Erect, pedunculate sponges up to 305 mm long and 20 mm thick at the widest part of the body, anchored in muddy substrate by a multi-furcate rhizoid basal root, with a club-shaped to conical, fleshy body and long, irregularly branching filaments that extend laterally at the apex of the sponge. The stem is up to 250 mm long and only 0.15 mm wide. The main body including filaments is 39 mm in length, and including the filaments 20 mm wide. The filaments themselves are up to 10 mm in length and 0.5 mm in width. The remainders of the basal rhizoid rootlets are 15 mm long and 0.3 mm wide. Colour: Pale cream to orange on deck and beige in ethanol. Ectosomal skeleton: The ectosome of both the stem and the filaments consists of soft tissue encrusted with abyssochelae. Endosomal skeleton: The body, filaments and axis of the stem are composed of tightly bound, long, thin mycalostyles longitudinally arranged. The basal rhizoid rootlet also consists of longitudinally aligned axes of substrongyles that are shorter than those styles in the remainder of the sponge. Megascleres: Mycalostyles in the filaments and stem are long, thin and straight with sharp points (615 – 1280 x 7.0 – 15.2 µm). Substrongyles from the roots are shorter and thicker, sometimes curved, often with blunt ends (92 – 555 x 3.4 – 16.7 µm) (see Table 2). Microscleres: Abyssochelae with curved shaft (18.4 – 53.1 x 10.2 – 24.0 µm). In the smaller abyssochelae, the frontal and lateral alae are usually in contact with the alae offset from the opposing ones. In larger abyssochelae these alae become separated from those opposing alae. Abyssochelae of intermediate sizes were also present (see Table 2). Molecular data: The 28 S sequence of QM G 337545 and G 337546 are provided in the Sponge Barcoding Database under accession number SBD # 2302, SBD # 2303 respectively and the molecular difference to other congenerics displayed in Figure 3.