A Checklist of the Curaçao Sponges (Porifera Demospongiae) including a pictorial key to the more common reef-forms

Although sponges are by no means unimportant organisms, in biomass and diversity, of the Curaçao coral reefs, very few scientific studies have been undertaken in this area involving sponges. To date, apart from taxonomie studies by Arndt (1927) and myself (Van Soest, 1978, 1980), only the boring sponges received attention (e.g. studies of De Groot, in progress). The main reason for this, no doubt, is the confused taxonomy of West Indian sponges. While taxonomie studies are in full progress (but are necessarily slow), it is now already possible to present sufficient data to allow certain identification of the more common reef forms by non-taxonomists for ecological or other purposes. It is one of the objects of the present paper to provide these data; they take the form of a pictorial key of 30 species (following the idea of H. Reiswig for Jamaican sponges), some accompanying descriptions of the habit, and references to published photographs.