Abstract
TN the Records of the Indian Museum for May (vol. vi., part 2), Dr. N. Annandale describes certain curious masses dredged in the Bay of Bengal, which on examination proved to be sponges associated with gregarious molluscs of the family Vermetidae, the latter being embedded in the former. The masses, which were in a bad state of preservation, are of two types, one consisting of shells with serrated ridges embedded in moderately hard black sponges, and the other of smoother shells associated with stony sponges, ranging in colour from red to yellow. The ridged shell is Siliquaria muricata, and the associated sponge Spongorocites topsenti. The second type comprises two molluscs, Spiroglyphus cummingi and Siliquaria cochlearis, the associated sponges being two forms of Racodiscula sceptrellifera, which differ from one another in colour. When fresh, the masses of the second type must have had a brilliant appearance, the sponge being red or orange, the shells pink, and the soft parts of the molluscs yellow. Both the two sponges associated with the three Vermetidse are found elsewhere growing alone.
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Papers on Invertebrates . Nature 87, 229 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/087229a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/087229a0