Haliclona (Haliclona) oculata (Linnaeus, 1759)

Van Soest, Rob W. M., 2025, Typification of Porifera described in the 10 edition of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae, volume II, 1759, Zootaxa 5638 (1), pp. 1-65 : 53

Haliclona (Haliclona) oculata

With the help of Naturalis colleague Niels van der Windt, COI sequence data of the neotype specimen have been obtained and submitted to Genbank under accession nr. PP372827. This sequence is 100% identical to the sequence of Northern Irish Haliclona oculata [reg.nr. BELUM 4065, from Strangford Lough, 54°21.707N 5°32.497W, depth 12 m, coll. B.E. Picton, with accession nr. HQ379430 studied by Morrow et al. (2012)] and to the sequence of an Eastern North American specimen, collected off Maine, 43.07°N 70.71°W, studied by Pankey et al. (2022), Genbank accession nr. MZ496739.

There are numerous sequences in GenBank taken from reliably identified specimens, including specimens in the Naturalis collection. The reason I prefered to assign a specimen from which no DNA sequence data were already available, e.g. from specimen ZMA Por. 17501 from a nearby locality ( Netherlands, Dreischor, 51.7°N 4.05°E, depth 1 m), see Raleigh et al. (2007: GenBank accession nr. AY625661 , COI gene), is that the habit of the neotype ZMA Por. 06031, is much more representative morphologically than the poor remaining fragments of ZMA Por. 17501. Furthermore, it appears that in a BLAST attempt this latter sequence was found to be not closely similar to the above mentioned reliably identified specimens. A similar motivation of less representative habitus was the reason for not using ZMA Por. 14116 (from NW France, Roscoff, Château du Taurau, 48.6833°N 3.8833°W, depth 16.5 m, September 1998, coll. by M.J. De Kluijver, field nr. SYMBIOSPONGE 98/FR/SEP15/MK/030), sequenced by McCormack et al. (2002: Fig. 1 , GenBank accession nr. AF441340 , 28SrRNA gene). The sequence AF441340 is 99.85% similar to the sequence of Northern Irish Haliclona oculata [reg.nr. BELUM 4065, from Strangford Lough, 54°21.707N 5°32.497W, depth 12 m, coll. B.E. Picton, with accession nr. HQ379326 studied by Redmond et al. (2013)].

There are also 18S rRNA sequences available for this species, of which a NW French Haliclona oculata sequence with accession nr. DQ927307 published by Redmond et al. (2007) is 99.62% similar to several sequences of Haliclona oculata from the New England coast of the United States of America (GenBank accession nrs. MZ416350 –52, small subunit rRNA studied by Pankey et al. 2022).

Three samples of Haliclona oculata from the Netherlands labeled HAP221, 239 and 240 were sequenced by Redmond et al. (2011: Table S1) and the sequences were identical to those of the Roscoff specimen ZMA Por. 14116 (GenBank accession nrs. JN179007 (28S) and JN242199 (COI ‘Folmer’) mentioned above. The same samples were used previously in a study of the usefulness of ITS1 and 2 by Redmond & McCormack (2009: Table 1).

This neotype designation with a dozen or more morphologically closely similar specimens with closely similar DNA sequences ensures that the type species of the genus Haliclona , currently with more than 470 accepted species, is optimally available as the anchor for a phylogenetic classification based on COI sequences of this ubiquitous and speciose group.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Pages reproduced from A. Van Royen 1740 (pp. 521–522) treating Spongia species. Note that only 10 species were listed (Spongia fluviatilis was omitted compared to Linnaeus 1753b cf. Fig. 2) and the order of presentation is different.