Porifera collection of the Italian National Antarctic Museum (MNA)

This new dataset presents occurrence data for Porifera collected in the Ross Sea, mainly in the Terra Nova Bay area, and curated at the Italian National Antarctic Museum (MNA, section of Genoa). Specimens were collected in 331 different sampling stations at depths ranging from 17 to 1100 meters in the framework of 17 different Italian Antarctic expeditions funded by the Italian National Antarctic Research Program (PNRA). This dataset focuses on all classes (Calcarea, Demospongiae, Hexactinellida and Homoscleromorpha) of the Phylum Porifera (Kingdom Animalia), and includes a total of 807 specimens belonging to 144 morphospecies (with 95 taxa classified at species level and 49 at genus level), are included in the dataset and representing 12 orders and 30 families.