''Polymastia crocea'' is a species of

sea sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...

belonging to the family

Polymastiidae Polymastiidae is a family of demosponges found in oceans throughout the world. It is the only family in the monotypic order Polymastiida. A useful diagnostic characteristic of members of this family is the presence of numerous surface papillae ...

. It is found in subtidal

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s below 6 m depth in the far north of the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

of New Zealand. This is a

globular A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars. Globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member ...

sponge up to 4 cm across or an encrusting sponge up to 7 cm across. This soft-textured sponge is very bright yellow outside and in with the surface covered in small

papilla Papilla (Latin, 'nipple') or papillae may refer to: In animals * Papilla (fish anatomy), in the mouth of fish * Basilar papilla, a sensory organ of lizards, amphibians and fish * Dental papilla, in a developing tooth * Dermal papillae, part of ...

e, some with pores, some without. This sponge is frequently infested with the parasitic

amphipod Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 9,900 amphipod species so far descr ...

'' Polycheria antarctica''. At least three species of

symbiont Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasit ...

foraminifera Foraminifera (; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class of amoeboid protists characterized by streaming granular Ectoplasm (cell biology), ectoplasm for catching food and ot ...

are found within this sponge.

References

* Sponges of New Zealand Animals described in 1997 Hadromerida Taxa named by Michelle Kelly (marine scientist) Taxa named by Patricia Bergquist {{demosponge-stub