Crella elegans

(Schmidt, 1862)

Species Overview

Crella elegans (Schmidt, 1862) is rosy or light violet massive encrustation with darker coloured and slightly raised areolated porefields. It is predominantly a Mediterranean species recorded once from the NW coast of Spain.

Taxonomic Description

Colour: Rosy or light violet with darker coloured porefields.
Shape, size, surface and consistency: Massively encrusting, with smooth surface and slightly raised rounded porefields.
Spicules: (Crella elegans spics) Megascleres : Tornotes smooth, oxeote, fusiform with short points: 125-195 µm; acanthostyles with heavily spined heads and more lightly spined shafts: 118-160 µm; acanthoxeas, slightly curved, with blunt ends, in two size classes: 125 µm and 55-70 µm. No microscleres .
Skeleton: Ectosomal skeleton a crust of tangential acanthoxeas. Choanosomal skeleton consisting of plumose bundles of tornotes, echinated by acanthostyles.
Ecology: On Laminaria holdfasts in the sublittoral.
Distribution: Mediterranean, Galicia.
Type specimen information: The type is in the Graz Museum, LMJG 15526. No type material in BMNH.

Remarks

Colour and absence of microscleres make this species readily distinguishable from other Crella species of the area.
Source: Durán and Solórzano, 1982