Ciocalypta colorata Gutekunst & Müller & Pohl & Brümmer & Malik & Fawzi & Erpenbeck & Lehnert 2018, n.sp.

Ciocalypta colorata n.sp.

(Figs 1–4, Table 1)

Material. Holotype: Senckenberg Museum Frankfurt, Germany (SMF 11646) and Zoologische Staatssammlung, München, Germany (ZSM 20160309), 28.05.2014, Valentin Gutekunst and Andreas Müller, Palinurus Rock, Sponge City, Iraq. GPS-Coordinates: 29.61942 °N, 48.80628 °E, depth: 11 m, water temperature: 28°C.

Description. In life, the holotype is an orange coloured sponge (Fig. 2), consisting of a basal mass covering 5 X 2 X 0.5–1 cm, partially covered by sediment and ex situ with 12 thin, orange coloured, semitransparent fistules of irregular outline, up to 2 cm in height and a diameter of 2–3 mm (Fig. 3A, B). Some fistules are in touch with adjacent ones at the base, others with a distance of 0.5–1 cm apart. The sponge turns to cream in ethanol. There are no oscules visible. Consistency of the fistules is eXtremely fleXible and easy to tear. The ectosome of the fistules consists of an organic veneer with circular apertures, presumably ostia, 30–35 µm in diameter (Fig. 3C). This organic veneer is supported by short spicule tracts, one to two spicules long and one to five spicules in diameter, branching from a spicule aXis running through the center of the fistules (Fig. 3D). The central spicule aXis ranges from 180–450 µm in diameter. In some places, the diverging short spicule tracts are indistinct and especially at the base of the fistules look more like a halichondroid arrangement of spicules. The basal mass consists of a confused, halichondroid arrangement of oXeas, sediment particles and partially of foreign spicules. Spicules consist of two categories of oXeas: large oXeas, 605–(710.5)–809 X 3–15 µm (possibly divided into a thick, 10–15 µm and a thin, 3–7 µm category with some occurring intermediates) and small oXeas, 154–(201)–261 X 8–10 µm. OXeas occasionally have telescoped ends.

Molecular phylogenetic position. The CO1 tree (Fig. 4) comprises 119 heteroscleromorph sequences and was trimmed to 455 positions, which were present for all the taXa. The CO1 sequence of Ciocalypta colorata n. sp. falls into in a clade outside Suberitida, which include sequences submitted to Genbank as Ciocalypta carballoi (Genbank accession number KX866757), Ciocalypta sp. (JQ034562) and Topsentia ophiraphidites (EU237482).

Etymology. From latin, coloratus—coloured