Sponges of Palau, I — BERGQUIST 
193 
and in one specimen (Ifaluk 798) almost en- 
tirely absent. 
DISCUSSION: Burton (1937) has tabulated 
the salient characters of ten species of Ecione- 
mia from the Indo-Pacific area and demon- 
strates that all can be referred to Stelletta bacil- 
lifera Carter. At this time Burton presumably 
considered Ecionemia acervus Bowerbank as 
distinct from E. bacillifera ; in 1959, however, 
he extends the synonymy to include E. acervus. 
This later synonymy is not supported by any 
additional evidence, but since such species as 
Ecionemia agglutinans Thiele and Ecionemia 
cribrosa Thiele had already been included in 
the broad view of E. bacillifera (Burton, 1937), 
the inclusion of E. acervus with its microsclere 
complement of tylasters, tylospherasters, and 
microrhabds is not unreasonable. E. acervus 
Bowerbank is very close in spiculation to the 
Fig. 31 b. Ancorina acervus (Bowerbank). Micro- 
scleres, drawn from the holotype of Hezekia walkeri 
de Laubenfels. 
Ifaluk specimens described above; the Palau 
specimens and the type of H. walkeri are in- 
separable from S. truncata Kieschnick and E. 
amboinensis Lendenfeld. Thus, in these two 
relatively contiguous localities, we have two 
populations definitely separable on spicule char- 
acteristics. Although Burton’s propositions with 
regard to this complex are adopted here, indi- 
cations are that further study may reveal two 
and possibly three species grouped under E. 
acervus. 
It is not absolutely, clear from the literature 
that Ecionemia Bowerbank (1862) is a syno- 
nym of Ancorina Schmidt (1862). Sollas (1888) 
made the first significant contribution to our 
knowledge of these genera and he clearly un- 
derstood Ancorina Schmidt to possess sanidas- 
ters and oxyasters, therefore falling into the 
Sanidasterina, and Ecionemia Bowerbank to 
possess microrhabds and tylasters to spherasters, 
thus falling into the Rhabasterina. 
Sollas did not state the source of his informa- 
tion as to the microsclere spiculation of An- 
corina cerebrum Schmidt. There are no figures 
of microscleres in the type description and ref- 
erence is made only to "sternchen et kugeln.” 
In the absence of any redescription of Schmidt’s 
material it can only be assumed that Sollas in- 
terpreted "kugeln” to mean sanidaster. Dendy 
(1905, 1916) was aware of the difficulty of 
separating Ecionemia and Ancorina, but by 
1924 was convinced that sanidasters graded 
into microrhabds and consequently that Ecio- 
nemia fell to Ancorina. Dendy’s conclusion is 
adopted here, as it is the only clear directive 
with regard to the relationship of these two 
genera. 
It has been mentioned above that the holo- 
type of Hezekia walkeri de Laubenfels con- 
tains anthasters and tylasters and certainly be- 
longs to the Ancorina acervus complex. The 
genus Hezekia was established by de Lauben- 
fels (1934) for H. demera from Puerto Rico. 
The holotype of the type species (USNM 22206) 
has been re-examined and found to contain 
abundant tylospherasters and tylasters, the for- 
mer 4-6g in diameter with short rays, the lat- 
ter up to 8g in diameter with 5-7 long fine 
rays. Hezekia de Laubenfels thus falls to An- 
corina Schmidt; the species demera may or may 
