460 
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oL 
cu 
Desmacidon novae=zealandiae nov. spec. 
(Fig. 17 a—cl.) 
Off New Plymouth. 8 fathoms. Hard bottom. 12/1.1915. 
One specimen, irregularly and thickly encrusting on a shell; 
greatest extension ca. 30 mm, about 5 mm thick. Surface very 
minutely hispid. Ostia very numerous, about 40 mm in diameter; 
a few minute oscula with slightly elevated mar¬ 
gins, about 0,3 mm in diameter are found. Texture 
tough, colour whitish. 
The skeleton consists of stout polyspicular fibres 
arranged more or less radially; they are somewhat 
serpentined, running more or less perpendicularly 
towards the surface, where they expand to tutts 
making the dermal-membrane hispid; in the interior 
they here and there coalesce and branch; they are 
up to ca. 200 /11 in thickness; isolated oxea are 
seen throughout the choanosome. 
Spicules. a. Megascleres. Oxea (fig. 17 a) 
rather siender, straight, evenly tapering towards 
the pointed ends, about 350 x 6 /i. b. Micro- 
scleres. Isanchorae unguiferae (fig. 17 b—d), 
very delicate, strongly curved; the lateral teeth 
are standing almost vertically outwards and are 
rather long, which faet makes the anchorae broad. 
12—14 /L in length. 
This species seems to be somewhat related to 
Desmacidon maeandrina Kirkp. (8), Desmacidon 
intermedia Dendy (2) and D. (?) ramosa R. & D. 
(14), the latter having radially arranged fibres like the species in 
hånd. 
Fig. 17. Desmacidon 
novae-zealandiae 
nov. spec a. Oxea. 
h. Front-, c. Side-, 
d. Half front-, half 
side-view of Isan¬ 
chorae unguiferae, 
lophonopsis Dendy. 
lophonopsis Dendy (4), p. 348. 
I follow Dendy in his establishment of this new genus. Dendy 
has on p. 348 “usually acanthostyles, but sometimes smooth (?)“, 
which (?) now has to disappear. 
