Carnivorous sponges from the Australian Bathyal and Abyssal zones collected during the RV Investigator voyage IN2017_V03 (2017)

17 new species of carnivorous sponges from the family Cladorhizidae sampled at bathyal and abyssal depths off the east coast of Australia during the RV Investigator 2017 Abyss Expedition. The species are comprised of six genera. Only three carnivorous species, A. desmophora, As. (As.) desmophora and C. (Meliiderma) tasmaniensis, have been recorded from Australia previously. This expedition also recovered two described species commonly recorded from the Southern Hemisphere The data has been acquired on the following RV Investigator voyage(s) <a href=\"https://www.marine.csiro.au/data/trawler/survey_details.cfm?survey=IN2017_V03\">IN2017_V03</a> with links to additional metadata, datasets, events, deployments, publications etc. If this data has been used in any products, please acknowledge with the following: We acknowledge the use of the CSIRO Marine National Facility (https://ror.org/01mae9353) in undertaking this research.