Porifera of Friday Harbor— DE LAUBENFELS 
known cosmopolitan sponge. Its wide distribu- 
tion may be due to the fact that it bores in the 
shells of mollusks which may transport it freely 
from place to place. It frequently disintegrates 
the shells completely in the course of time, and 
may do serious damage to- commercial oyster 
beds. As an older sponge it grows up and out 
from its earlier boring habitat to make large 
yellow masses, frequently the size of a man’s 
head. Such were not found in Puget Sound, how- 
ever; only a few small boring specimens being 
recorded. 
Choanites suberea var. lata (Lambe, 1892) de 
Laubenfels, 1936$ 
Fig. 1, Gl-2, 2 E 
The sponge thus identified is moderately com- 
mon in the vicinity of Friday Harbor, fre- 
quently occurring on hermit crab shells, which 
may in the course of time be completely re- 
placed by the sponge so that no trace of the 
calcareous material remains, except that the 
sponge preserved the shell-shape as a mold 
might. 
The total mass is frequently more than 3 cm. 
in diameter. The color in life was gray white 
and the consistency was stiff, cartilaginous or 
cork-like. The surface is optically very smooth; 
pores are not in evidence, but a few oscules 2 
to 4 mm. in diameter are found, usually from 
only one to three per sponge. 
Within the sponge the spicules are densely 
packed, although there are distinctive gross 
canals 0.5 to 1.5 mm. in diameter. An even 
denser ectosomal region which might almost be 
described as a cortex extends from 0.3 to 0.7 
mm. below the surface. In it practically all the 
spicules are placed with their points toward the 
surface, whereas this is frequently but not al- 
ways the case in the interior of the sponge. 
These ectosomal spicules are perhaps slightly 
smaller than those of the endosome. The meg- 
ascleres of this species are of one sort only, 
tylostyles 5 X 280 to 6 X' 180 /i. The micro- 
scleres are centrotylote microstrongyles 24/x 
long. 
This species was described from European 
specimens as Spongia suberea by Montagu 
(1818: 100). The Puget Sound species in ques- 
201 
tion was first described by Lambe (1892: 71) 
as Suberites latus. This was recorded from Cali- 
fornia by de Laubenfels (1932: 52) where it 
is reduced to a subspecies of Viculina suberea. 
The genus Viculina being a complete synonym 
of Choanites , however (de Laubenfels 1936$: 
144), the genus must be designated according 
to the prior appellation. The ■principal or Eu- 
ropean variety has slightly smaller spicules, and 
is frequently, though not always, rosy red in 
color. 
REFERENCES 
Ellis, J. 1786. The Natural History of Many 
Curious and Uncommon Zoophytes Collected 
from the Various Parts of the Globe. System- 
atically Arranged and Described by the Late 
Daniel Solander. London. 206 pp., 63 pi. 
Grant, R. E. 1826. Notice of a new zoophyte 
( Cliona celata Gr. ) from the Firth of Forth. 
Edinb. New Phil. J. 1: 78-81. 
Gray, J. E. 1867. Notes on the arrangement of 
sponges with the description of some new 
genera. Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond.: 492—558, pi 
27-28. 
Hallman, E. F. 1914. A revision of monaxid 
species described as new in Lendenfeld’s "Cat- 
alogue of the Sponges in the Australian Mu- 
seum.” Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 39: part I, 
263-315, pi. 15-24; part II, 327-376; part 
III, 398-446. 
Hentschel, E. 1912. Kiesel- und Horn- 
schwamme der Am- und Kei-Inseln. Abh. 
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Kirk, H. B. 1894. Contribution to a knowledge 
of the New Zealand Sponges. By.... In: 
Trans. N. Z. Inst. 26: 175-179, pi. 22. 
Lambe, L. M. 1892. On some sponges from the 
Pacific Coast of Canada and Behring Sea. 
Proc. Trans. Roy. Soc. Can. 10, sec. 4: 67- 
68, pi. 3-6. 
1893. Sponges from the Pacific Coast 
of Canada. Proc. Trans. Roy. Soc. Can. 11, 
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