Dysidea hirciniformis sensu Dendy 1924

Dysidea hirciniformis (Carter, 1885a) sensu Dendy (1924)

Dendy (1924) considered his highly characteristic, thin, ramose, deep subtidal North Cape specimens, to be similar to Dysidea hirciniformis, from Port Phillip Heads, South Australia. Lendenfeld (1889) described them as forming a bunch of cylindrical, digitate, upright branches, about 15 mm thick, 150 mm long, with a conulose surface, conules being 2.5 mm high and the same distance apart, with rare oscules, 3–4 mm diameter. The colour in life was pale buff with purple tips and the fibres were packed with sand-grains, the primary fibres 180 µm thick, secondary fibres 80–150 µm thick, forming a mesh about 80 µm wide (Lendenfeld 1889: 665).

Without histological examination of the original specimens and comparison with Dendy’s material, it is impossible to say with certainty whether the name hirciniformis is valid for the North Cape specimens: Dendy (1924: 384) indicated that there were differences. Despite the disjunct distribution, the likelihood of conspecificity of North Cape specimens with a South Australian species is moderate, as there are several clear precedents including Polymastia cf. massalis Carter, 1886 (in Kelly-Borges & Bergquist 1997), Tethya bergquistae Hooper in Hooper & Wiedenmayer, 1994 (in Bergquist & Kelly-Borges 1991), and Chondropsis kirkii (Bowerbank, 1841), Crella incrustans (Carter, 1885b), Callyspongia ramosa (Gray, 1843), Callyspongia cf. annulata (Ridley & Dendy, 1886), and Dactylia varia (Gray, 1843) (in Kelly & Herr 2018).