The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma / edited by A.E. Shipley. Freshwater sponges, Hydroids & Polyzoa / by N. Annandale.

Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma / edited by A.E. Shipley. Freshwater sponges, Hydroids & Polyzoa / by N. Annandale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    22. Corvospongilla burmanica * (Kirkpatrick). (Plate II, fig. 5.) Spongilla loricata var. burmanica, Kirkpatrick, Itec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 97, pi. ix (1908). Sponge forming a shallow sheet, hard, not very strong, of a pale brownish colour ; the surface irregularly spiny ; the oscula small but conspicuous, circular, raised on little turret-like eminences; the external membrane adhering closely to the sponge. Skeleton dense but by no means regular; the network composed largely of single spines; thick radiating fibres distinguishable in the upper part of the sponge. Spicules. Skeleton-spicules smooth, not very stout, ampbi- strongylous, occasionally a little swollen at the ends, often with one or more fusiform swellings, measuring on an average about 0-27 X 0-0195 mm. Flesh-spicules with distinct rotules, the recurved spines numbering 4 to 6, measuring about ^ the length of the spicules ; the shaft by no means strongly curved; their length from 0*03-0-045 mm. Gemmule-spicules amphioxous, as a rule distinctly curved, sometimes swollen at the ends, covered regularly but somewhat sparsely with fine spines, not measuring more than 0-49 x 0-078 mm. Gemmules strongly adherent, arranged in small groups, either single or double; when single spherical, when double oval; each gemmule or pair of gemmules covered by two layers of gemmule- spicules bound together in chitinous substance ; the inner layer on the inner coat of the gemmule, the outer one separated from it by a space and in contact with the outer cage of skeleton-spicules ; the size of the gemmule-spicules variable in both layers; external to the outer layer a dense cage of skeleton-spicules; foraminal tubule short, cylindrical. This sponge is closely related to S. loricata, Weltuer, of which Kirkpatrick regards it as a variety. “ The main difference,” he writes, “ between the typical African form and the Burmese variety consists in the former having much larger microstrongyles (83 x 15’7 g [0-83 x 0-157 mm.]) with larger and coarser spines ; Judging from Prof. Weltner’s sections of gemmules, these bodies lack the definite outer shell of smooth macrostrongyles [blunt skeleton-spicules], though this may not improbably be due to the breaking down and removal of this layer. A further difference consists in the presence, in the African specimen, of slender, finely spined strongyles [amphistrongyli], these being absent in the Burmese form, though perhaps this fact is not of much importance.” Type in the British Museum ; a piece in the Indian Museum. Habitat.—Myitkyo, head of the Pegu-Sittang canal, Lower Burma (E. IF. Oates). Biology.—The sponge had grown over a sheet of the polyzoon Hislopia lacustris, Carter (see p. 204), remains of which can be detected on its lower surface.