Amphilectus Vosmaer 1880

Amphilectus is a genus of demosponges, comprising around 20 species found in oceans around the world.

Amphilectus is very close to Esperiopsis. Amphilectus was recently re-erected in the Systema Porifera (Van Soest & Hajdu, 2002) inspired by a threatening replacement of Esperiopsis by the older name Amphilectus. The differences were more or less artificially established as presence (Esperiopsis) or absence (Amphilectus) of sigmas and/or other microscleres in addition to the palmate chelae, and independently the size of the megascleres (over 400 microns in length: Esperiopsis, under 400: Amphilectus). Helmut Lehnert (in litteris) pointed out that several species so far (February 2006) retained in Esperiopsis conform to Amphilectus according to above given differences. Accordingly, we adapted genus names from his suggestions, even though such genus transfer proposals were not officially published.