brown saguaro sponge Phorbas areolatus

Phorbas areolatus is found throughout Antarctica and South Georgia Island, Falkland Islands, Chile, and New Zealand from 22 to 970 meters depth [1,2,3,7]. The body of P. areolatus is globular, lobate (curved or rounded), and up to twelve centimeters high; it can be in a thick encrusting form when young [2,3,5]. The color of P. areolatus is yellow, yellowish-red, yellowish brown, or garnet [2,5].



Here's a closer view of the surface texture of Phorbas areolatus.

The surface of P. areolatus is uneven and frequently divided into rounded or elongated fields having pores with slightly elevated rims [2,3].



Another view of the same Phorbas areolatus, with the white stalked sponge Asbestopluma aff. lycopodina on the left.

Taxonomic Note: Koltun (1966) has it recorded as Anchinoe areolata [2]. Later authors synonymize Achinoe under Phorbas [3,4,8]. The species changes gender to areolatus when the genus changed gender [6].

1: Hooper, JNA & Wiedenmayer, F. Porifera. IN: Zoological Catalogue of Australia. Volume 12. Wells, A, ed. Melbourne : CSIRO Australia, 1994; 2: Sponges of the Antarctic. I. Tetraxonida and Cornacuspongida. VM Koltun. IN: Biological reports of the Soviet Antarctic Expedition, 1955-1958 (Rezultaty biologicheskikh issledovanii Sovetskoi antarkticheskoi ekspeditsii, 1955-1958). Volume 2. EP Pavlovskii, ed. Jerusalem : Israel Program for Scientific Translations. 1966. pp.6-131; Appendix, Index of Latin Names on pp. 443-448; 3: Marine Fauna of New Zealand: Porifera, Desmospongiae, Part 4 (Poecilosclerida). Bergquist PR and Fromont PJ. New Zealand Oceanographic Institute Memoir 96, 1988; 4: RWM Van Soest. Marine Sponges from Curacao and other Caribbean Localities. Part 3. Poecilosclerida. Studies on the Fauna of Curacao and other Caribbean Islands 199, The Hague : M. Nijhoff, 1984; 5: Instituto Antartico Chileno. Serie Cientifica 39:97-158, 1989; 6: Article 34(b) of the 1985 International Code of Zoological Nomenclature; 7: Polar Biology 12:559-585, 1992; 8: Systema Porifera. JNA Hooper and RWM Van Soest. New York: Kluwer, 2002

Asbestopluma aff. lycopodina ID by Walentina de Weerdt and Rob van Soest (provided without specimens for checking microscopic details). Text ©Peter Brueggeman. Photographs ©Norbert Wu. Photographs may not be used in any form without the express written permission of Norbert Wu. Norbert Wu no longer grants permission for uncompensated use of his photos under any circumstances whatsoever; want more info?