| The Sultanate of Oman harbours rich populations of sponges, especially in the four coral reef areas (Musandam Peninsula, Muscat coast & Daymaniyat islands, coasts of Masirah Island, and the Khuriya Muriya Islands). Up till now, apart from a few incidental samples, the sponges of Oman were known only from five dredge stations made by the John Murray Expedition 1933-1934 off the south coasts of Oman, near the Khuriya Muriya Islands, between 13.5 and 1415 m. Descriptions of the sponges obtained in these dredges were published by Burton (1959) and the specimens are deposited in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London. To complement these dredge samples, we recently obtained samples collected by SCUBA and shore collecting, mostly from the... |
