PANAMA SPONGES — DE LAUBENFELS 443 



cent are also recorded from Puget Sound, 1,200 kilometers north, but 

 this latter area has been less intensively studied; of a collection I 

 made in that region in the summer of 1931, 62 percent are sponges 

 occurring also in California. Of a collection from Lower Cahfornia, 

 nearly 1,000 kilometers south, 36 percent are species occurring also 

 in California. From the Pacific coast of Panama, in contrast to the 

 62 percent and 36 percent, only 19 percent are species occurring also 

 in California, and every one included in the 19 percent is a cosmopol- 

 itan species, not to be regarded as characteristic of any one locality. 

 The Pacific coasts of Panama, judged from their sponge fauna, shov/ 

 not a trace of zoogeographical connection with those of North Am.erica 

 but do show a little with those of Europe and with the polar regions 

 and more yet with that small fraction of the West Indian fauna that 

 occurs on the Caribbean coast of Panama, and finally contain a 

 rather large proportion of species peculiar to the locality. How this 

 compares with the west coast of South America remains to be seen. 



DESCRIPTION OF PACIFIC COAST SPECIES 

 Genus APLYSILLA Schulze 



APLYSILLA GLACIALIS (Merejkowsky) 



This species is represented in the collection by U.S.N.M. no. 

 22211. It was found growing on wood in Balboa Harbor, beneath one 

 of the piers. It is a thin encrustation, was rosy red in life, and is soft 

 and fleshy; the conules are about 1 mm high and 2 to 4 mm apart. 

 The eurypyllous flagellate chambers vary from 30/x by 60ju to 55/x by 

 105/i. The dendritic ascending fibers average about 50/i in diameter 

 and arise from an extensive basal spongin plate. 



The specimen is typical of the species, which was originally de- 

 scribed from the Arctic as Simplicella glacialis by Merejkowsky 

 (1878, p. 264) and later recorded from Australia by Lendenfeld (1889, 

 p. 706). I (deLaubenfels, 1932, p. 125) recorded it from California, 

 erroneously giving credit for the authorship to Dybowsky (1880, p. 

 65), in which reference it appears to be a new species, but actually it 

 had been previously described. Thiele (1905, p. 489) recorded it from 

 the sub-Antarctic, with the opinion that his specimen was conspecific 

 with that of Lendenfeld but not with that from the Arctic. He 

 therefore established a new name, Aplysilla lendenfeldi, for the speci- 

 mens south of the Equator. There seems to be no good reason for 

 the estabhshment of this new name, and it is here proposed that 

 glacialis be retained for the entire species. The point was made that 

 the Arctic specimen had fewer oscules than the others and that these 

 had somewhat raised collars around them. This is almost certainly 

 a reaction to the current, or a lack thereof, and has little if any taxo- 

 nomic value. See Bidder (1923). 



