Family HETEROXYIDAE Dendy, 1905

Museums

Regional Maps

• Heteroxyidae Dendy, A. 1905. Report on the sponges collected by Professor Herdman, at Ceylon, in 1902. 57-246 pls 1-16 in Herdman, W.A. (ed.). Report to the Government of Ceylon on the Pearl Oyster Fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar. London : Royal Society Vol. 3 Suppl. 18.
• Higginsiinae Laubenfels, M.W. de 1936. A discussion of the sponge fauna of the Dry Tortugas in particular, and the West Indies in general, with material for a revision of the families and orders of the Porifera. (Tortugas Lab. Paper No. 467). Publication of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Washington 30: 1-225 22 pls 1 map.

Diagnosis

Encrusting, massive or ramose sponges often with hispid or conulose surfaces bearing smooth or spined microxea microscleres, often centrangulate or strongly bent centrally, sometimes acanthose and rhabdose, usually found localised on ectosome, sometimes also with raphides occurring singly or in bundles (trichodragmata), or acanthose cladotoxa and birotules in one genus; megascleres monactinal (styles or tylostyles), diactinal (oxeas, strongyles) or both; choanosomal skeleton a confused arrangement of single spicules or widely spaced reticulate bundles of multispicular fibres, with little spongin, with poorly developed or no axial compression, and relatively poorly differentiated extra-axial skeleton (disorganised-plumose).

ID Keys

KEY TO GENERA
(1)Microscleres (acantho-)microxeas ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2
Microscleres discorhabd-like microxeas ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Didiscus
Microscleres sanidaster-like acanthose microrhabds -------------------------------------------------------------- Negombo
Microscleres raphides ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4
Microscleres acanthose cladotoxas and birotules ----------------------------------------------------------- Acanthoclada
Microscleres absent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Heteroxya

(2)Cortex absent, without microscleres or with microscleres scattered but not confined to the surface -- Higginsia
Cortex moderate with scattered microscleres concentrated near surface ------------------------------ Parahigginsia
Cortex well-developed, with an erect palisade of microscleres perpendicular to the surface------------------------ 3

(3)Extra-axial megascleres centrangulate oxeas ---------------------------------------------------------------- Halicnemia
Extra-axial megascleres absent ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Microxistyla

(4)Ectosomal megascleres acanthose oxeas ---------------------------------------------------------------- Myrmekioderma
Ectosomal megascleres raphidiform oxeas --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Higginsia
Ectosomal megascleres (acantho-) strongyles -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Julavis

Diagnosis References

Hooper, J.N.A. 2002. Family Desmoxyidae Hallmann, 1916. pp. 755-772 in Hooper, J.N.A. & van Soest, R.W.M. (eds). Systema Porifera: A guide to the classification of sponges. New York : Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers Vol. 1. [755]

General References

Bergquist, P.R. 1978. Sponges. London : Hutchinson 268 pp. 12 pls 81 figs 15 tables.

Brien, P., Lévi, C., Sarà, M., Tuzet, O. & Vacelet, J. 1973. Spongiaires. pp. 1-716 485 figs in Grassé, P.P. (ed.). Traité de Zoologie. Anatomie, Systématique, Biologie. Paris : Masson et Cie Vol. 3(1).

Hallmann, E.F. 1917. A revision of the genera with microscleres included, or provisionally included, in the family Axinellidae, with descriptions of some Australian species. Part 3. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 41: 634-675 4 figs pls 29/3, 5-6, 33/6, 38/5

Hartman, W.D. 1982. Porifera. pp. 640-666 in Parker, S.P. (ed.). Synopsis and Classification of Living Organisms. New York : McGraw-Hill Vol. 1.

Hooper, J.N.A. 2002. Family Desmoxyidae Hallmann, 1916. pp. 755-772 in Hooper, J.N.A. & van Soest, R.W.M. (eds). Systema Porifera: A guide to the classification of sponges. New York : Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers Vol. 1.

Hooper, J.N.A., Capon, R.J., Keenan, C.P., Parry, D.L. & Smit, N. 1992. Chemotaxonomy of marine sponges: families Microcionidae, Raspailiidae and Axinellidae, and their relationships with other families in the orders Poecilosclerida and Axinellida (Porifera: Demospongiae). Invertebrate Taxonomy 6(2): 261-301

Hooper, J.N.A. & Lévi, C. 1993. Axinellida from the New Caledonian lagoon (Porifera: Demospongiae). Invertebrate Taxonomy 7(6): 1395-1472

van Soest, R.W.M., Diaz, M.C. & Pomponi, S.A. 1990. Phylogenetic classification of the halichondrids (Porifera, Demospongiae). Beaufortia 40(2): 15-62

van Soest, R.W.M. & Hooper, J.N.A. 2005. Resurrection of Desmoxya (Porifera: Halichondrida), with the description of a new species from Rockall Bank bathyal coral reefs, North Atlantic. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 85: 1367-1371 [1368]

Wiedenmayer, F. 1977. Shallow-water Sponges of the Western Bahamas. Basel : Birkhäuser (Experientia Suppl. 28) 287 pp. 43 pls.

History of changes