engleski

Historical overview on the Adriatic calcarean sponges

The Adriatic Sea represents one of the seven eco-regions of the Mediterranean. It is situated in the northernmost part of the Mediterranean and can be subdivided into three ecologically distinct areas: Northern, Central and Southern Adriatic. Some of the first sponge studies have been carried out in the Adriatic, starting a long time ago with Aristotle dissecting an Adriatic sponge in 300 BC. Since then, many scientists have been investigating this area and the Adriatic Sea is known today as the type locality of many sponge species. Calcarean sponges in the Adriatic were most intensively investigated in the 19th century, primarily by Schmidt, who had described in details the localities he had visited back then, in some of his most famous works. Ten years later, in his extensive Monography, Haeckel finds and describes some of the Adriatic calcarean species, and also revises Schmidt's species along the way. After Lendenfeld's work on the Adriatic calcareans in the end of the 19th century, calcarean sponge taxonomy of this region has been rather neglected. Only in recent years, the interest in calcarean sponges and in their type species and localities has grown wider, so in the 21st century a few papers revived this subject. We here present a historical overview of calcarean species records in the Adriatic Sea, comparing chronologically since Schmidt till nowadays the presence/absence of recorded species and their localities.

Porifera ; Calcarea ; Adriatic Sea

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