Keratosa, the keratose sponges or horny sponges, is a subclass of demosponges.Horny sponges and their affairs: On the phylogenetic relationships of keratose sponges. Dirk Erpenbeck, Patricia Sutcliffe, Steve de C.Cook, Andreas Dietzel, Manuel Maldonado, Rob W.M.van Soest, John N.A.Hooper and Gert Wörheide, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Volume 63, Issue 3, June 2012, Pages 809-816,
Keratosa sponges are nonspicular demosponges with organic spongin fibers forming flexible skeletons. Bowerbank, J. S. (1862). Anatomy and Physiology of the Spongiadae.--Part III. [Abstract]. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 12, 146–148.Luo, C., Pei, Y., Sylvain Richoz, Li, Q., & Joachim Reitner. (2022). Identification and Current Palaeobiological Understanding of “Keratosa”-Type Nonspicular Demosponge Fossils in Carbonates: With a New Example from the Lowermost Triassic, Armenia. Life, 12(9), 1348–1348.
Recently discovered in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, these sponges contribute to reef structures in tropical regions. Preeti Antonetta Pereira, & Raghunathan, C. (2024). Three new records of Keratosa sponges (Demospongiae: Porifera) from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. Discover Oceans, 1(1).
References
External links
Keratosa at the World Porifera Database