nomes no trilho de navegação
“ECIONEMIA COMPRESSA, Bowerbank.
Sponge. Elevated on a short compressed pedicel, mass much compressed, surface even, smooth. Oscula simple, dispersed, small. Pores inconspicuous. Dermal membrane abundantly spiculous; tension spicula acerate or inflato-acerate, entirely incipiently spined, rather slender, numerous; retentive spicula attenuatostellate, large; and elongo-attenuato stellate, small, and very numerous. Connecting spicula attenuatopatento-ternate, radii long and rather slender, shaft rather short. Skeleton. Spicule acerate, rarely acuate, large, and long. Interstitial membranes abundantly spiculous; spicula the same as those of the dermal membrane.
Colour.—Light gray.
Habitat—Shetland, Mr. C. W. Peach.
Examined.—In the dried state.
I am indebted to my friend Mr. Peach for this interesting specimen; the first British species I have seen of the genus. It was dredged by Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffrey, in 1864, and preserved for me by the donor, who accompanied the expedition. The sponge is in excellent preservation.
It is three and half inches in height; two and three quarters in breadth, within about an inch of the distal extremity, and its greatest thickness is about four lines; the height of the pedestal is three fourths of an inch, and its breadth nearly the same; and there are two lateral lobes of the sponge, which each extend downwards to about half the length of the pedestal, their inner margins being nearly in contact with its thin edges.
The most distinctive characters in this species are those of the spicula of the dermal and interstitial membranes, and the tension spicula especially so; the incipient spination is common to them all, but the central inflation of the shaft is not equally prevalent; the greater number of them, perhaps, may be said to be deficient in that character, while in the other portion it is well developed, and always near the middle of the shaft. In many parts of the membranes, they are exceedingly numerous, and are always irregularly dispersed. The difference between the larger and the smaller stellate spicula in size is very considerable; the former are usually simply stellate or slightly elongated, while the latter appear always to be decidedly elongo-stellate. A satisfactory definition of these spicula requires a linear power of five or six hundred.
The connecting spicula are not very numerous, and are samewhat variable in size, their radii are often quite half the length of the shaft. I could not detect any recurvoternate spicula among them.”
(Bowerbank, 1866)
