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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    Subgeuus A. EUSPONGILLA, Vejdovshj. Euspongilla, Vejdovsky, Abh. Bohm. Ges. xii, p. 15 (1883). Euspongilla, id., iu Potts’s “ Fresh-Water Sponges,’’ P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 172. Euspongilla, Weltner, in Zackarias’s Tier- und Pflanzenwelt des Siisswassers, i, p. 210 (1891). Type, Spongilla lacustris, auctorum. Spougillae in which the geiniuules are covered with a thick, apparently granular pneumatic coat. A delicate membrane often occurs outside this coat, but it is never thick or horny. The gemmules usually lie free in the sponge but sometimes adhere to its support; rarely they are fastened together in groups (e.g. in S. aspinosa, Potts). The skeleton-spicules are never very stout and the skeleton is always delicate. The species in this subgeuus are closely allied and must be dis- tinguished rather by the sum of their peculiarities than by any one •character. They occur in all countries in which Spongillidae are found. Seven Indian species may be recognized. 1. Spongilla lacustris, auctorum. Spongilla lacustris, Bowevbauk, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, p. 441, pi. xxxviii, fig. 14. Spongilla lacustris, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 87 (1881). Euspongilla lacustris, Vejdovsky, in Potts’s “ Fresh-Water Sponges,” P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 172. Spongilla lacustris, Potts, ibid., p. 186, pi. v, fig. 1, pi. vii, figs. 1-6. Euspongilla lacustris, Weltner, in Zackarias’s Tier- und Pflanzenwelt des Siisswassers, i, p. 211, figs. 36-38 (1891). Spongilla lacustris, id., Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), pp. 118, 133-135 (1895). Spongilla lacustris, Annandale, J. Linn. Soc., Zool., xxx, p. 245 (1908). [I have not attempted to give a detailed synonymy of this common species. There is no means of telling whether many of the earlier names given to forms or allies of S. lacustris are actual synonyms, and it would serve no useful purpose, so far as the fauna of India is concerned, to complicate matters by referring to obscure descriptions or possible descriptions of a species only represented in India, so far as we know, by a specialized local race, to which separate references are given.] Sponge soft and easily compressed, very brittle when dry, usually consisting of a flat or rounded basal portion of no great depth and of long free cylindrical branches, which droop when removed from the water; branches occasionally absent. Colour bright green when the sponge is growing in a strong light, dirty flesh- colour when it is growing in the shade. (Even in the latter case