Geodia gibberosa

Geodia gibberosa
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Porifera
Class: Demospongiae
Order: Astrophorida
Family: Geodiidae
Genus: Geodia
Species: G. gibberosa
Binomial name
Geodia gibberosa
Lamarck, 1815

Geodia gibberosa (the white encrusting sponge)[1] is a Caribbean sea sponge. It is known to be eaten by hawksbill turtles.[2]

Characteristics

The Geodia gibberosa is a large, dense sponge. It can be white or pale tan when exposed to very little light, or dark brown in areas with a lot of it.[3] It is usually in the form of a knobby, fist-like mass, often up to 50 cm in diameter. It may also occur as a spherical mass without projections and is also known to form large colonies that resemble rounded calcareous rocks.[4] Its skeleton is a bunch of needle-like spicules radiating outward from the center near the surface, much more randomly dispersed on the inside.[3]

Geodia gibberosa is found in the Bahamas, Florida, Brazil, and west Africa.[5][3] It's commonly found in shallow waters with hard bottoms, generally in the same area as seagrasses.[3]

Bibliography

References


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/8/2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.