Marine Species Identification Portal : Tedania anhelans

(Lieberkühn, 1859)

Species Overview

Tedania (Tedania) anhelans (Lieberkühn, 1859) is a massive cushion-shaped soft, reddish brown sponge with thin projections and elevated oscules. Surface smooth, consistency soft. It is southern species, common in the Mediterranean, but occurring along the west coasts of Portugal, Spain and France.

Taxonomic Description

Colour: Reddish brown; also reported as orange-green or blueish.
Shape, size, surface and consistency: (Tedania anhelans BandW) Massive, up to 8 cm long, 4 cm wide and 6 cm high, with conical oscular elevations; next to these there are thinner blind-ending fistules and projections. Oscules 4 mm in diameter. Surface smooth; preserved specimens may be a bit wrinkled. Consistency soft, compressible, easily damaged.
Spicules: (Tedania anhelans spics) Megascleres: microspined tylote: 140-305 x 3.5-7 µm; choanosomal styles, smooth, robust, of uniform size: 170-280 x 5-11 µm.
Microscleres: These are dubbedonychaete (microspined aniso-raphide); they occur in a single but variable size category: 40-220 x less than 1 µm.
Skeleton: Ectosomal skeleton consistes of tangential and partly erect bundles of tylotes strewn rather randomly at the surface; also many onychaetes occur at the surface. Choanosomal skeleton consists of an irregular ladder-like reticulation of multispicular bundles of styles. The skeletal plan is often obscured by many loose single spicules.
Ecology: Known from subtidal localities down to 40 m.
Distribution: A southern species: Bretagne (two records), Galicia, Portugal, Mediterranean, West Africa, Canary Islands, Azores. Cited from all over the world, but it is likely that the records outside the Eastern Atlantic concern closely similar but different species.
Etymology: anhelans (Latin) = puffed up, swollen.
Type specimen information: No type material in BMNH.

Remarks

This species differs from the partially sympatric Tedania (T.) suctoria (Schmidt, 1870) in the presence of microspined tylotes (smooth in suctoria) and the much smaller size of the spicules (styles up to 680 µm, tylotes up to 470 µm and onychaetes up to 500 µm in suctoria). T. (T.) suctoria is a species from deeper, predominantly boreo-artic waters.
Van Soest (1987) claimed the northernmost record of this species from Roscoff, but in fact Topsent (1932) listed the species from the estuary of the Rance, which is equally north and more to the east of Roscoff.
Source: Van Soest, 1987.

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Tedania anhelans