Stelligera rigida, (MONTAGU, 1818)

Morrow, Christine, Cárdenas, Paco, Boury-Esnault, Nicole, Picton, Bernard, Mccormack, Grace, Soest, Rob Van, Collins, Allen, Redmond, Niamh, Maggs, Christine, Sigwart, Julia & Allcock, Louise A., 2019, Integrating morphological and molecular taxonomy with the revised concept of Stelligeridae (Porifera: Demospongiae), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 187, pp. 31-81 : 44-45

STELLIGERA RIGIDA (MONTAGU, 1818)

Spongia rigida Montagu, 1818

Stelligera stuposa f. rigida (Montagu, 1818)

Vibulinus rigidus (Montagu, 1818)

Material examined: BELUM Mc975, Blockhouse I s l a n d, C a r l i n g f o r d L o u g h, N o r t h e r n I r e l a n d, 54°01.45′N, 6°04.70′W, 15 m, 21.07.1983, coll. B. Picton, det. B. Picton.

BELUM Mc 4357, Wreck of the Rondo, Sound of Mull, Scotland, 56°32.33′N, 5°54.81′W, 32 m, 02.07.2008, coll. B. Picton, det. B. Picton.

DNA sequences: From BELUM Mc4357, we sequenced partial CO1 (GenBank accession no. HQ379420 ) and 28S (D1–D2, D3–D5 and D6–D8, GenBank accession nos HQ379219, HQ379285 and HQ379353 , respectively). The GenBank 18S sequence ( KC902164 ) is from this specimen .

Remarks: Hooper (2002b) speculated that Stelligera rigida (Montagu, 1818) from the British Isles and Stelligera nux Lendenfeld, 1898 from the Mediterranean might be synonyms of Stelligera stuposa , although the types were not examined. From extensive collecting of Stelligera stuposa and Stelligera rigida from areas close or adjacent to the type locality, we can verify that differences in external morphology are consistent with small differences in aster morphology. There were also small differences between the two taxa using complete 18S rRNA (Supporting Information, Fig. S2) and partial fragments of 28S rRNA (Supporting Information, Figs S3, S 5), but the CO1 Folmer fragment (Supporting Information, Fig. S4) was identical for the two species.