Haliclonais an unusually species-rich genus in Porifera, with more than 400 species described. In spite of many subgenera used in the taxonomic housekeeping of these sponges, over half of them remain unassigned to a subgenus, thus encouraging a wide range of redescriptions and taxonomic revisions of materials from all around the world. In this paper, we describe two newHaliclonaspp. collected at Pernambuco, Alagoas and Bahia States (north-eastern Brazil, between 08°46′S and 13°56′S).Haliclona(Reniera)chlorillasp. nov. is a dark green or black coloured, delicately-branched species; andHaliclona(Soestella)peixinhoaesp. nov., a beige-coloured, tubular species, where tubes frequently bear large thorns and possess a conspicuous sub-superficial meandering reticulation. These species highlight the importance of includingex-situcollections in compiling baseline data, as both were already present in scientific collections by the 1980s and 1990s.
The Peruvian coast is certainly one of the poorest studied areas in the world for marine sponges biodiversity, with only 20 species registered so far from over 2,400 km coastline. In spite of its great species richness worldwide, there is not a single record of Haplosclerida in Peru. Accordingly, in this study we aimed to describe the species belonging to this order present in the relatively recent collections undertaken along the Peruvian coast by two of us (PhW, EH). Here, we describe fourteen new species, provisionally endemic to the Peruvian coast. This finding represents a major addition to the knowledge of the biodiversity of sponges along the Peruvian coast, increasing the list of species known to occur in this area by about 68%. This is also the largest single proposal of new Haplosclerida in over 37 years of sponge taxonomy worldwide. Niphates is for the first time recorded in the Southeastern Pacific, and an identification key to the Haplosclerida from the Peruvian coast is provided. Regarding the distribution of the described species, most of them—except for Chalinula chelysa sp. nov.—have a narrow geographic range, which might indicate their rarity or that the haplosclerid fauna in Peru is still poorly known.
Haliclona is one of the most species-rich genera among Demospongiae, but with only 11 species recorded for the Brazilian coast. Here we describe two new species of Haliclona collected by trawling at Sergipe State (Northeastern Brazil). Haliclona (Halichoclona) dura sp. nov. is distinguished by the combination of confused choanosome with dense reticulation, oxeas with stepped and mucronate points, color dark brown externally and light beige internally, consistency firm and incompressible. Haliclona (Soestella) brassica sp. nov. is set apart by the combination of a choanosomal skeleton with rounded meshes, strongyles, raphides, color beige and consistency soft.
Two new species of Haliclona (Chalinidae, Haplosclerida) are described here from Brazilian oceanic islands and the coast of Ceará State. They derive from collections undertaken between 1999 and 2014, and materials are deposited in the Porifera collection of Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro (MNRJ). Haliclona (Halichoclona) insularis sp. nov. can be distinguished from other Haliclona spp. in the western Atlantic by the combination of surface with light to deep red colour intermixed with white to beige areas (occasionally completely beige), white to beige choanosome, small fistular outgrowths, fragile consistency and blunt oxeas (90–175 × 1–5 μm) with irregular tips. Haliclona (Soestella) moraesi sp. nov. is the only western Atlantic species of Haliclona with the combination of thickly encrusting to cushion-shaped habit, purple or light pink colour, and a dense (sub)isotropic skeleton with rounded meshes, and without microscleres. Several attempts to amplify COI mtDNA and 28S C2–D2 rRNA for both species were unsuccessful, in spite of the initial successful extraction of genomic DNA. The number of Haliclona spp. known from the Brazilian coast is now 17. The long gap between species collection and formal description supports the concept of the taxonomic impediment, which is particularly marked in speciose taxa with little morphological disparity, as observed in Haplosclerida.
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