62 THE SPONGES OF THE WEST-CENTRAL PACIFIC 



Haliclona coerulescens (Topsent) de Laubenfels 



Text Figure No. 36 



This species is here represented by the following : 

 U.S.N.M. No. 23071, My No. M. 451, collected August 10, 1949, by diver 

 at the north side of Moen Islet in the Truk lagoon. The depth was 2 

 meters and the substrate was dead coral. 



The shape of this specimen is a rounded mass, 2 cm thick and 9 cm 

 in diameter. 



Text Figure No. 36. Two of the spicules (oxea) of Haliclona coerulescens, X 781. 



The color in life was a rich ultramarine blue, 1 verging slightly toward 

 violet. The color of the endosome was the same as that of the ectosome. 

 The consistency was spongy but easily torn. 



The surface is typically haliclonid. The pores are 50 fx to 120 \x in 

 diameter and are about 250 \x apart, center to center. The oscules are about 

 5 mm in diameter and not much more than 1 cm apart, being very abundantly 

 distributed over the entire upper and lateral surfaces of the mass. 



As might be expected, the ectosome is nonexistent and the endosome 

 is a fibrous-reticulation. 



The skeleton consists first of spongin fibers from 25 fx to 100 /a in 

 diameter. These form meshes of extreme irregularity in size and shape and 

 contain, here and there, scattered spicules. Some portions of the fibers are 

 devoid entirely of coring material ; in other cases there is a single row of 

 spicules ; and in still other places there are groups of three or four spicules. 

 The latter are diactinal but so bluntly pointed that they may rather be called 

 tornote than simply oxeas. Very many of them are 6 \x by 144 /x in dimen- 

 sions, but almost as many are only 1 /x by 88 [x. Does this latter constitute 

 a separate category? If so, would this perhaps take the species out of the 

 genus Haliclona, as well as providing a reason for regarding this as a new 

 species instead of identifying it with coerulescens? 



Topsent, 1918, page 537, described Reniera coerulescens from the West 

 Indian region ; and de Laubenfels, 1936, page 39, transferred this to Haliclona. 

 It seems remarkable to find the species occurring in the Western Pacific, but 

 there are other instances of such distribution. If the thinner category of 

 spicules (as mentioned above) constitute a regular portion of the complement 

 in West Pacific species, as might be indicated if additional specimens were 

 available, then the synonymy should not be completed. But inasmuch as the 



