Clarifying the status of Raspaciona aculeata and Raspailia aculeata

Topsent erected Raspaciona aculeata for Raspailia aculeata, (=Halichondria aculeata, Johnston, 1842) but he based his description of a bright red encrusting sponge on material from the Mediterranean, which contrasts with the brown sponge described by Johnston, with a type locality in England. We collected specimens from the UK and Ireland, as well as the Mediterranean, and compared these with the type material of Johnston, and the description given by Topsent . 28S rRNA sequences were obtained from samples matching the descriptions of Raspaciona aculeta and Raspailia aculeata and results were used to construct a RaxML genetree. The genetree shows that Raspailia aculeata clusters closely with Eurypon clavigerum whilst Raspaciona aculeata clusters closely with Eurypon curvoclavus. DNA analysis also returned a difference of 9% between these two entities on the 28S D1-D2 region indicating they should be considered as separate. Based on our results, we propose to resurrect Raspailia aculeata and amend the distribution records for this apparently northern species. A new name is required for the bright red Mediterranean species Raspaciona aculeata. Eurypon gracile (Bertolino, Calcinai & Pansini, 2013) described from the Mediterranean has several notable similarities to Raspaciona aculeata and merits further examination of type material in order to confirm whether these are conspecific.