Mycale (Carmia) suezza (Row, 1911)

Esperella suezza Row, 1911: 338, text-fig. 18.

Summary description. Irregular (preserved) dark grey mass, partly growing on a mussel. Surface slightly conulose but otherwise smooth. Consistency soft, easily fragmented. Skeleton consists of sinuously curved spicule tracts, branching but not anastomosing. Tracts variable in thickness, containing 2–6 spicules in the peripheral region, but in deeper parts may be 20–25 spicules thick. There are also many loose scattered megascleres. No ectosomal skeleton. Mycalostyles 320–330 x 4 µm, abundant anisochelae in two? size categories, the larger of which are 40 µm or less, sigmas 70 x 4 µm (occasionally tri-forked or swollen), toxas long, possibly raphidotoxa-like, but usually with abrupt median curve, 210–310 µm.

Distribution. Suez, northern Red Sea, shallow depth.

Comment. For the time being we maintain this species as separate, but its published description makes it very similar to the junior Mycale (Carmia) madraspatana Annandale, 1914 . This is described as being a thin brick-red crust, but no other differences are apparent.