Scleritoderma, SOLLAS, 1888

Schuster, Astrid, Cárdenas, Paco, Pisera, Andrzej, Pomponi, Shirley A., Kelly, Michelle, Wörheide, Gert & Erpenbeck, Dirk, 2018, Seven new deep-water Tetractinellida (Porifera: Demospongiae) from the Galápagos Islands - morphological descriptions and DNA barcodes, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 184, pp. 273-303 : 297

GENUS SCLERITODERMA SOLLAS, 1888

Emended diagnosis: Scleritodermidae with ectosomal acanthostrongyles or acanthorhabds, occasionally with ectosomal tylostyles, and sigmaspires as microscleres (modified after Pisera & Lévi, 2002c).

Remarks: Our new species has all the characters of typical Scleritoderma , for example, rhizoclone desmas, sigmaspire microscleres occurring in the choanosome; however, this is the first time tylostyles have been observed. Careful analysis demonstrated, that these are clearly not a contamination (see remarks below). The occurrence of tylostyles resulted in the emended diagnosis.