| Common name: |
Black ball sponge |
| Growth Form: |
Globular, hemispheric or cake-shaped, up to 60 cm across; often with an apical depression containing clustered oscules; sometimes with weak lobes. Uncommon ridge-shaped specimens have oscules in a row along the crest. |
| Surface: |
Distinct, usually large, well-separated conules (2-15 mm high, 5-15 mm apart), sometimes connected by low narrow ridges. |
| Color: |
Grey or charcoal to black, often paler near the base; rarely almost white. Oscules black. |
| Consistency: |
Rubbery, very difficult to cut. |
| Oscules: |
Typically in an apical cluster, each 4-10 mm across; either flush, in a shallow apical depression, or on weak lobes. Small specimens may have single oscules. |
| Skeletal components (Spicules, fibers): |
No spicules. Irregular meshwork of fibers sparsely cored with sand and foreign spicules, with much thinner connecting fibers (as little as 8 μm). Thin spongin filaments (1-6 μm wide) with knobbed heads (5-12 μm wide) fill in between the fibers. |
| Skeletal architecture: |
No exterior skeletal specialization, but the surface layer is thickly loaded with sediment. Interior fibers form ascending bundles (fibrofascicles) 200-1000 μm wide, 700-1700 μm apart with much thinner connecting fibers. |
| Ecology: |
On coral reefs and hard bottoms. Some specimens have been dredged from deeper muddy sand bottoms. As with other Iricinia species, this sponge has a strong, sulfurous, pungent smell when removed from the water. |
| Distribution: |
Bermuda, Gulf of Mexico, South Florida and throughout the Caribbean. |
| Notes: |
Specimens fit well with the literature descriptions. Co-occurring I. felix is brown with smaller more crowded conules and smaller oscules that usually are darker than the surrounding surface and do not cluster. |
| References: |
van Soest (1978), Zea (1987), Ruetzler et al. (2009). |
| Similar species: |
Ircinia felix |
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