Darwinella Müller, 1865

Bertolino, Marco, Costa, Gabriele, Bavestrello, Giorgio, Pansini, Maurizio & Daneri, Giovanni, 2020, New sponge species from Seno Magdalena, Puyuhuapi Fjord and Jacaf Canal (Chile), European Journal of Taxonomy 715, pp. 1-49 : 38

Genus Darwinella Müller, 1865

Type species

Darwinella muelleri (Schultze, 1865) .

Emended diagnosis

In the Darwinella , the dendritic fibre skeleton is supplemented by fibrous spicules which can be diactinal, triactinal or polyactinal. There is no sand in the fibres but dispersed cellular elements can occur. The sponges are fleshy, encrusting, or massive to lobate; to which fibrous spicule with style shape may be added (emended from Müller 1865).

Remarks

The species of Darwinella may be confused with those belonging to the genus Aplysilla Schulze, 1878 because of the similarity in external shape; however, Darwinella is characterized by the presence of diactinal, triactinal or polyactinal fibrous spicules ( Pronzato 1975). In the present study we described a new fibrous spicule type for the Darwinella genus.