Agelas wiedenmayeri Alcolado, 1984

Rützler, Klaus, Piantoni, Carla, Van, Rob W. M. & Díaz, Cristina, 2014, Diversity of sponges (Porifera) from cryptic habitats on the Belize barrier reef near Carrie Bow Cay, Zootaxa 3805 (1), pp. 1-129 : 78

Agelas wiedenmayeri Alcolado, 1984

Synonymy and references. Agelas wiedenmayeri Alcolado, 1984: 11 , fig 7B, C, 8B; Parra-Velandia et al., 2014: 313, figs. 4, 15F (including synonymy).

Material. USNM 1191332, Carrie Bow Cay forereef cave, 20-28 m; M. C. Diaz col. 8 Sep 2009. USNM 1229101, Curlew Bank forereef slope (wall), framework cave, 18 m; C. Piantoni & M. Parrish, col. 25 Aug 2012.

External morphology. Groups of short tubes or hollow lobes (5–12 cm) protruding from crevices in coral rock. Apical openings of the tubes measure 5–15 mm, on the lobes they are also apical but scattered and small (1–3 mm). Color is brown to reddish brown, cream in the interior of the sponge.

Skeleton structure. Interconnected spongin fibers, cored and echinated by spicules.

Spicules. Acanthostyles with spines in equidistant whorls: 88–200 x 8–18 (139 x 14) Μm, 9–15 (12) whorls of spines.

Ecology. Found under platy coral rock and in framework caves, 5– 28 m.

Distribution. The species seems to occur throughout the Caribbean region.

Comments. This is the species erroneously described as Agelas schmidti , from the Bahamas ( Wiedenmayer (1977: 13, fig. 137; pl. 27, fig. 1). We confirmed the identity with our material by examining a microscope slide made from a fragment of the holotype of A. wiedenmayeri , generously provided by P. Alcolado (USNM 39266); spicule dimensions and number of whorls are nearly identical. A slight reduction of spine size in the middle of some of the largest spicules was evident but far less obvious than in the real A. schmidti and in A. sventres .