South African Latrunculiidae (Porifera: Demospongiae: Poecilosclerida): descriptions of new species of Latrunculia du Bocage, Strongylodesma Lévi, and Tsitsikamma Samaai & Kelly
Author
Samaai, Toufiek
Author
Gibbons, Mark J.
Author
Kelly, Michelle
Author
Davies-Coleman, Mike
text
Zootaxa
2003
371
1
26
journal article
51240
10.5281/zenodo.156901
dee4aba8-8b9f-431f-8e28-4f29f0c3c3a8
11755326
156901
Genus
Tsitsikamma
Samaai & Kelly 2002
Type
species.
Tsitsikamma favus
Samaai & Kelly, 2002: 729
Diagnosis.
Semispherical, pedunculate, or encrusting
Latrunculiidae
with a smooth surface covered with large cylindrical or volcanoshaped oscules and raised fungiform areolate porefields. Colour in life is dark liver brown to dark turquoise, or pinkish brown. Texture is extraordinarily tough and leathery. Megascleres are styles, microscleres are isochiadiscorhabds. A choanosome permeated with rigid honeycomblike chambers visible to the unaided eye, surrounding a much softer interior with wispy tracts, or a single purselike chamber with softer interior, characterises this genus. Microscleres are present in an irregular palisade on the surface ectosome and lining the internal tracts (modified from Samaai & Kelly, 2002).