Mycale (Mycale) digitata Bergquist & Tizard, 1967

Van, Rob W. M., Aryasari, Ratih & De, Nicole J., 2021, Mycale species of the tropical Indo-West Pacific (Porifera, Demospongiae, Poecilosclerida), Zootaxa 4912 (1), pp. 1-212 : 141

Mycale (Mycale) digitata Bergquist & Tizard, 1967 comb.nov.

Mycale (Carmia) digitata Bergquist & Tizard, 1967: 187 , pl. 5 fig. 2, text-fig. 2.

Aegogropila digitata ; Kelly-Borges & Bergquist 1988: 134, pl. 2 fig. d.

Summary description. Massive sponge with conical digitations. Color in life yellow or greenish, internally orange. Consistency firm. Surface optically smooth, punctate. Ectosomal skeleton with tangential megascleres strewn without order, and with rosettes of anisochelae I, diameter 150–180 µm. Choanosomal skeleton of stout anastomosing tracts with little visible spongin carrying the surface skeleton. Spicules: mycalostyles 416–540 x 7.5–16 µm, anisochelae I 53–65 µm, anisochelae II 24–29 µm, anisochelae III 16–18 µm, sigmas, apparently not divisible in size groups, 16–45 µm. Raphides, which are not certainly proper (not mentioned in Kelly-Borges & Bergquist 1988), 140–350 µm.

Distribution. North Australia (Darwin region) and S Papua & New Guinea (Motupore Island), shallow water.

Comment. The descriptions of this species and the illustrations, especially the SEM photo of an anisochela II (?) provided in Bergquist & Kelly 1988: Pl. 2d, remind rather strongly of Mycale (Mycale) crassissima . Conspecificity is precluded by the apparent absence of trichodragmas, and also the presence of rosettes of anisochelae in the present species.