PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM issued \\m,ik S CfiMti ^H '^* SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM Vol. 83 Washington : 1936 No. 2993 A COMPARISON OF THE SHALLOW-WATER SPONGES NEAR THE PACIFIC END OF THE PANAMA CANAL WITH THOSE AT THE CARIBBEAN END By M. W. deLaubenfels Pasadena, Calif. During the summer of 1933 I made a study of the intertidal sponge fauna at each end of the Panama Canal. ^ Specimens were collected from intertidal waters or from waters barely below low tide, entirely without dredging. The method most frequently employed was wading and collecting by hand, but in some cases an ordinary garden rake was used from a rowboat. The sponges of the deeper ocean differ radically from those in intertidal and shallow waters. This has been well brought out by various authors, particularly by Burton (1928). Seldom do sponges from one of these habitats venture over into the other. In general the sponges of the deeper waters of one ocean are related to those in other oceans from similar depths rather than to the adjacent shallow-water forms. The latter are likely to show more regional or local specializations than are sponges from greater depths. It was there-fore deemed more important to compare the shallow-water sponges from the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal with those from the Pacific end than to make any effort to collect sponges from deeper waters farther out on either side of the isthmus. I Thanks are clue to Dr. James Zetek, of the U. S. Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, and to various other officials connected with the Government staff in the Panama Canal Zone who made it possible to carry on the collecting and locate suitable places for finding spongas, and to officials of the U. S. National Museum, especially Dr. Alexander Wetmore and Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, for help and cooperation. 56905—36 1 441
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