386 BULLETIN 100, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Family HAPLOSCLERIDAE. 



Haploscleridae Topsent 1894c ; and Authors. 



Haploscleridae minus llama cant hinae and Merliinae Dendy, 1921b. 



Microscleres often absent; when present never chelas. The 

 megascleres are fundamentally diactinal. Where the skeleton is 

 made up of distinct spiculo-fibers, these are typically non-plumose. 



The family is taken in the sense of Topsent (1894c), except that 

 the Phoriosponginae are excluded. The subfamilies recognized are 

 the four (Gelliinae, Renierinae, Chalininae, Spongillinae) advocated 

 by Topsent, 1904, and the Phloeodictyinae. The forms making up 

 the subfamilies Tedaniinae, Desmacellinae, and Hamacanthinae 

 were transferred by Topsent, 1894c, to the Desmacidonidae as forms 

 which have lost the chelas. The general complexity of these sponges 

 seems to justify this move which has been followed by Topsent in 

 later papers, by Wilson, 1904, and Hentschel, 1912, for Tylodesma 

 (Biemma Authors), by Hentschel, 1911, for Desmacella, by Kirk- 

 patrick, 1908, Lundbeck, 1910, and Hentschel, 1911, 1912, for Tedania, 

 and by Dendy, 19216, for Tedania and the Desmacellinae. Dendy, 

 1905, added a new subfamily: Heteroxyinae, for Acanthoxifer, new 

 genus, and Heteroxya Topsent, the latter referred by its author and 

 in this report to the Donatiidae (Tethyidae Authors). Row (1911) 

 contributed a new genus, Anacanthaea, to this subfamily which 

 Dendy, 19216 (p. 25), now transfers to the Desmacidonidae. (See 

 this report under Spongosorites.) 



Dendy has (19165) proposed to merge the Axinellidae in this 

 family, but more recently would regard the bulk of the Axinellidae as 

 reduced Desmacidonidae (19216, p. 111). Lundbeck in his im- 

 portant memoir (1902) prefers not to use the family, but holds to 

 the Homorrhaphidae and Heterorrhaphidae of Ridley and Dendy 

 (1887). 



Subfamily Gelliinae. 



Gelliinae Ridley and Dendy, 1887. 



The megascleres are diactinal, oxeas, or strongyles; with mi- 

 croscleres in the shape of sigmas, toxas, rhaphides or trichodragmas 

 or microxeas, separately or in various combinations. 



The group (Gelliadae part, Gray, 1872) is taken in the sense of 

 Ridley and Dendy (1887) and Dendy (1905). Lundbeck, 1902, and 

 Topsent, 1904, include Oceanapia, assignable to the Phloeodictyinae. 

 The group is thought by Dendy to include the most primitive 

 sponges of the family, from which others (Renierinae, Chalininae. 

 for example) without microscleres have been derived. 



