Mycale (Mycale) ernsthentscheli Van Soest & Hooper, 2020

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) ernsthentscheli Van Soest & Hooper, 2020 comb.nov.

Mycale macilenta var. australis Hentschel. 1911: 296 , fig. 6a–d.

Mycale hentscheli Hooper in Hooper & Wiedenmayer, 1994: 288.

Mycale (Carmia) hentscheli ; Calcinai et al. 2013: 42, figs 26G–N.

Mycale (Carmia) ernsthentscheli Van Soest & Hooper, 2020: 33 .

Summary description. Encrusting, two specimens, but no further details on the habitus. Ectosomal skeleton a dense tangential layer of megascleres carried by choanosomal megsclere tracts that fan out beneath the surface. Rosettes of anisochelae I present. Spicules mycalostyles 232–306 x 3–4 µm, anisochelae I 32–41 µm, anisochelae II 12–20 µm, sigmas I 67–105 µm, sigmas II 17–30 µm (reported subsequently by Calcinai et al. 2013), toxas I 80–230 µm, toxas II present but no size given (toxas respectively 190–270 µm (I) and 47–115 µm (II) reported subsequently by Calcinai et al. 2013), micracanthoxeas 4 µm (subsequently reported by Calcinai et al. 2013).

Distribution. Shark Bay, Western Australia, 7–12 m depth, on coral reefs.

Comments. Calcinai et al. 2013 re-examined the type ZMB 4402 and found that Hentschel’s description of the spicules omitted to report small sigmas and micracanthoxeas. Remarkably, Calcinai et al. assigned the species to subgenus Carmia , but discussed it in their remarks on Mycale (Aegogropila) furcata . They gave no reason for the assignment to Carmia , but presumably this was caused by the fact that Mycale macilenta , of which this species originally was assigned to as a variety, is the type species of Carmia . The description by Hentschel of a dense tangential layer of megascleres in his specimens leaves little doubt that this species is not a member of Carmia .

A possible senior synonym is Mycale multisclera Pulitzer-Finali, 1993 (cf. below), but this remains uncertain as the description of that species is inadequate.

Hooper in Hooper & Wiedenmayer (1994: 288) proposed a new name Mycale hentscheli for Mycale macilenta australis Hentschel, 1911 from Shark Bay, Western Australia, because the subspecific name australis was already in use for Mycale (Grapelia) australis (Gray, 1866) . However, when Carmia hentscheli Bergquist & Fromont, 1988 was transferred to Mycale the name became a senior secondary homonym of Hooper’s name. ICZN Art. 57.3 required a new name to remove the homonymy, which was proposed recently as M. (C.) ernsthentscheli Van Soest & Hooper, 2020 . We now believe this needs to be transferred to subgenus Mycale .