Aspidoscopulia
Taxonomy
This page represents the following TreeOfLife-200M taxonomic path.[1]
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Porifera
- Class: Hexactinellida
- Order: Sceptrulophora
- Family: Farreidae
- Genus: Aspidoscopulia
Overview
Aspidoscopulia is a genus of glass sponges (class Hexactinellida) placed in the family Farreidae and recognized by GBIF as an accepted genus name (Aspidoscopulia Reiswig, 2002).[2]
General Ecology and Habitat Context
In a deep-sea glass-sponge–dominated benthic community (“The Forest of the Weird”) on a ridge at Johnston Atoll (≈2,365–2,370 m depth) in the Pacific Ocean, Aspidoscopulia occurs as one of the two dominant hexactinellid genera in that habitat map.[3]
Mortality and Spatial Responses
In the same study, most taxa showed dead individuals that were randomly distributed relative to living specimens, which the authors interpret as non-density-dependent causes of death at the main study scale. Aspidoscopulia showed a deviation in the high-density “Ridge Crest” region: dead Aspidoscopulia specimens were reported as non-randomly aggregated, consistent with density-dependent mortality in that sub-area.[3]
Visual Description
In deep-sea imagery associated with this genus in the TreeOfLife-200M records, Aspidoscopulia individuals are upright, erect glass sponges with a firm base and a reticulate/lattice-like surface texture characteristic of hexactinellids. The sampled images show variation in overall apparent tone across occurrences (e.g., darker brown to lighter/whitish-looking morphs), consistent with the study’s use of multiple color categories for Aspidoscopulia occurrences.[1][3]
Gallery
References
- 1 2 Dataset view for Animalia / Porifera / Hexactinellida / Sceptrulophora / Farreidae / Aspidoscopulia constructed from imageomics/TreeOfLife-200M records under this taxonomic path. Hugging Face Datasets. https://huggingface.co/datasets/imageomics/TreeOfLife-200M.
- ↑ Aspidoscopulia Reiswig, 2002. GBIF. https://www.gbif.org/species/2235716. Accessed 2026-07-09.
- 1 2 3 Emily G. Mitchell; Simon Harris. Mortality, Population and Community Dynamics of the Glass Sponge Dominated Community “The Forest of the Weird” From the Ridge Seamount, Johnston Atoll, Pacific Ocean. Frontiers in Marine Science. 2020. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.565171.