(Vosmaer, 1882b)

Species Overview

Iophon piceum (Vosmaer, 1882b) is a brown to blackish leaf-shaped or cup-shaped sponge with irregular rim and a grooved surface. It is soft and easily damaged. It is a northern deep-water species.

Taxonomic Description

Colour: Dark brown to blackish (alcohol), possibly lighter coloured.
Shape, size, surface and consistency: Leaf-shaped, or irregularly cup-shaped. Size up to 16.5 cm high; leaf thickish. Surface grooved, irregular, but otherwise smooth. Oscules and pores in grooves on opposite sides of the leaf surface. Consistency soft, easily damaged.
Spicules: (Iophon piceus spics) Megascleres: Ectosomal tylotes with extensively spined heads: 218-311 x 5-10 µm; acanthostyles, in a large size variation but not distinguished in two categories, curved, variably spined all over or only sparingly near both ends: 239-450 x 15-36 µm. Microscleres: Spurred anisochelae, of variable size, possibly in two size categories: 15-36 µm; bipocillae, rounded, with numerous fine teeth on the rims, in a single category: 8-14 µm.
Skeleton: Ectosomal skeleton is made up of tylote brushes, which are partially tangential arranged in intercrossing bundles. Choanosomal skeleton a rather tight-meshed multispicular isotropic reticulation, rather irregular, with little binding spongin.
Ecology: In deep water: 80-1785 m.
Distribution: Norway, Sweden, Faroes, Arctic.
Etymology: piceus (Latin) = pitch-black, referring to the colour.
Type specimen information: The type is in the Zoological Museum of Amsterdam, ZMA POR. 410.

Remarks

This species has been variously divided up into four subspecies (Koltun, 1959) or synonymized with Iophon nigricans. It admittedly is close to the latter, but in view of the distinct upright leaf-shaped growth form and the distinctly larger acanthostyles it is proposed here to keep piceus as a separate species.
Source: Arndt, 1935.

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Porifera
Class Demospongiae
Order Poecilosclerida
Suborder Microcionina
Family Acarnidae
Genus Iophon
Species Iophon piceum

Status in World Register of Marine Species

Accepted name: Iophon piceum (Vosmaer, 1882)

Scientific synonyms and common names

Alebion piceum n.sp. Vosmaer, 1882b: 42, pl. I fig. 19, pl. III figs. 75-78, 81-82; Vosmaer, 1885: 31.
Esperia nigricans: Fristedt, 1887: 448.
Iophon piceus: Lundbeck, 1905: 175, pl. VI figs. 1-2, pl.XVII fig. 3; Burton, 1930a: 494; Arndt, 1935: 63, fig. 118; Koltun, 1959: 150, fig. 106.
Iophon dubius: Burton, 1930a: 494; Brøndsted, 1932: 14

Arndt, W., 1935. Porifera. Tierwelt Nord.-Ostsee, IIIa: 1-140, figs. 1-239.

Brøndsted, H.V., 1932. Marine Spongia. The Zoology of the Faroes, 1 (1, III): 1-34.

Burton, M., 1930a. Norwegian sponges from the Norman collection. Proc. zool. Soc. London, 2: 487-546.

Fristedt, K., 1887. Sponges from the Atlantic and Arctic Ocean and the Behring Sea. Vega Exped., vetensk. Arbeten, 4: 403-471, pls. 22-31.

Koltun, V.M., 1959. [The Cornacuspongida of the northern and far-eastern seas of the USSR. Keys to the fauna of the USSR]. Akademia Nauk, Moscow, Leningrad, 236 pp., XLII pls.

Lundbeck, W., 1905. Porifera. Part II. Desmacidonidae (pars). Danish Ingolf Exped., 6 (3): 1-219, 20 pls.

Vosmaer, G.C.J., 1882b. Report on the sponges dredged up in the Arctic Sea by the Willem Barents in the years 1878 and 1879. Arch. Neerl. Zoologie, suppl. 1: 1-58.

Vosmaer, G.C.J., 1885. Sponges of the "Willem Barents" Expedition, 1880 and 1881. Bijdr. Dierk., 12: 1-47.

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