Family Phymaraphiniidae Schrammen, 1910

Abstract

Phymaraphiniidae Schrammen (Demospongiae, ‘lithistids’) contains only two extant genera: Kaliapsis Bowerbank and Rimella Schmidt. There are, however, several fossil (Mesozoic and Tertiary) genera (see chapter on fossil lithistids). The genus Kaliapsis is known from Bowerbank’s original description in 1869 (1869b), from the ‘South Seas’(no other data known), Madagascar, and recently has been found in the Caribbean, while Rimella occurs in the Caribbean and Azores, NW Atlantic. Representatives of the family occur both in shallow (coral reefs) and deep waters. The family is differentiated from others by the presence of trider-type desmas, discotriaenes to phyllotri- aenes as ectosomal spicules, and microscleres are acanthoxeas, acanthorhabds to acanthostyles and streptasters with long rays. Genera are differentiated by their habit and type of ectosomal spicules