Marine and freshwater sponges (Porifera) of the Netherlands

The collections of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie at Leiden and the Zoologisch Museum of Amsterdam contain 19 species of Porifera (15 marine and 4 freshwater species) originating from the Netherlands. Among the marine species, Halichondria panicea (Pallas, 1766), Halichondria bowerbanki Burton, 1930, Haliclona oculala (Pallas, 1766), Cliona celata (Grant, 1826), Scypha ciliata (Fabricius, 1780) (two forms) and Leucosolenia botryoides (Ellis & Solander, 1786) (two forms) appeared to be most common. Rare or moderately rare species proved to be Ficulina ficus (Linnaeus, 1767), Prosuberites epiphytum (Lamarck, 1816), Mycale contareni (von Martens, 1824) and Haliclona loosanoffi Hartman, 1958. Hymeniacidon perlevis (Montagu, 1812), Ciocalypta penicillus Bowerbank, 1866, Grantia compressa (Fabricius, 1780), Raspailia pumila (Bowerbank, 1866) and Clathrina coriacea (Montagu, 1818) are each represented by only one sample. Of the freshwater sponges two species are quite common: Spongilla lacustris (Linnaeus, 1758) and Ephydatia fluviatilis (Linnaeus, 1759). Two other species, Eunapius fragilis (Leidy, 1851) and Ephydatia muelleri (Lieberkühn, 1856) have been found only a few times.