Description. This is a thin incrustation over rock 6 – 9 × 3.8 cm 2, 1 – 3 mm thick. Light grey in vivo, creamy white in spirit, consistency soft, slimy. Surface smooth with a canal system seen through the dermis, characterized by a bulged stellate pattern with oscules round and centered, 4 mm in diameter (Fig. 15 A); all of which contract when out of water. The dermis is detachable when touched. Skeleton. The ectosomal consists here and there of ill-defined bouquets of auxiliary subtylostyles, slightly protruding from the surface; obscured by many other subtylostyles tangentially displayed and others in vague tracts. The choanosomal skeleton consists of a basal plate from which arise vague, straight, and sinuous tracts sometimes just simulating a bundle of spicules aligned in any direction (Fig. 15 B – C); the basal plate is combined also with a leptoclathriid arrangement of singly thick subtylostyles and acanthostyles with their heads fixed to the basal plate, points directed upwards. Spicules. Thin auxiliary subtylostyles with smooth and microspined heads in two size categories: I, 80 – 205 × 1.5 – 3.7 µm; II, 243.7 – 377 × 3 – 6 µm. Thick subtylostyles with a slight constriction at the neck, rugose heads or sometimes smooth; there are few of these in the field 127.4 – 317 × 5 – 10.4 µm; acanthostyles spined all over 47 – 68.1 × 3.6 – 5 µm; palmate isochelae 4.4 – 12 µm; two or perhaps three categories of toxas: I, 5.2 – 15.6 µm; toxa II in low numbers, 34.5 – 57.2 µm; and rhaphidiform or accolada toxa, 87 – 468 µm (Fig. 16 A – I, Measurements in Tab. 5).
Sumber: The genus Clathria from the Gulf of Mexico and Mexican Caribbean, with redescription and resurrection of Clathria carteri (Poecilosclerida: Microcionidae)