Tabachnick K.P. 2025. A new species, genus and family of a hexactinellid sponge from the Bering Sea (Porifera: Hexactinellida) // Invert. Zool. Vol.22. No.3: 401–410 [in English].
Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovsky Prosp. 36, Moscow 117997 Russia.
Konstantin Tabachnick tabachnick@mail.ru ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7669-7233
doi: 10.15298/invertzool.22.3.02
ABSTRACT: A new species, genus and family of a hexactinellid sponge from the bathyal zone of the Bering Sea are described. This representative of Hexactinosida or Sceptrulophora has an unique dictyonal (rigid) skeleton construction. Pseudocribrospongia piserai gen.n., sp.n. (Pseudocribrospongiidae fam.n.) has a circular row of lamellas which are longitudinally directed, nearly parallel, beneath and between the dermal and atrial surfaces. The lamellas may branch dichotomously (providing the goblet-like or triangular tong-like body forms with undulating walls in the biggest specimens) and are connected with their neighbors by rare and irregular dictyonal structures. The sponge is thick-walled. It is characterized by the development of the diplorhitic canalization in the slits between the radial oriented lamellas (which do not involve the dictyonal framework — no channelization). The canalization is formed from the loose spicules and the syncytia. The epirhyses and aporhyses have a quincuncial (staggered) type of arrangement, externally similar to that of the mainly fossil family Cribrospongiidae with so-called channelization — “development of the gaps (in thick-walled sponges) within the dictyonal skeleton”.
KEY WORDS: new family, genus and species of Hexactinellida, Bering Sea.