Superregnum: Eukaryota
Regnum: Animalia
Subregnum: Eumetazoa
Cladus: Bilateria
Cladus: Nephrozoa
Cladus: Protostomia
Cladus: Spiralia
Cladus: Lophotrochozoa
Phylum: Mollusca
Classis: Gastropoda
Subclassis: Heterobranchia
Infraclassis: Euthyneura
Cohors: Tectipleura
Subcohors: Euopisthobranchia
Ordo: Cephalaspidea
Superfamilia: Bulloidea
Familia: Bullidae
Genus: Bulla
Species (19): B. ampulla – B. amygdalus – B. arabica – B. bermudae – B. clausa – B. gouldiana – B. indolens – B. inesperata – B. krebsii – B. mabillei – B. occidentalis – B. orientalis – B. peasiana – B. punctulata – B. quoyii – B. solida – B. striata – B. succisa – B. vernicosa
Name
Bulla Linnaeus, 1758
Synonyms
Bullaria Rafinesque, 1815
Quibulla Iredale, 1929
Vesica Swainson, 1840
References
Links
Bulla Gastropoda in the World Register of Marine Species
Bulla is a genus of medium to large hermaphrodite sea snails, shelled marine opisthobranch gastropod molluscs. These herbivorous snails are in the suborder Cephalaspidea, headshield slugs, and the order Opisthobranchia.[1]
These snails are popularly known as "bubble snails", and their shells as "bubble shells", because the shell of some of the species is very inflated indeed, almost spherical in shape, and is also very thin and light.
According to some experts, Bulla is currently the only recent genus in the family Bullidae, which in turn is the only member of the superfamily Bulloidea. The family also includes the extinct genus †Acrocolpus Cossmann, 1895.
Shell description
Shell of Bulla vernicosa
All Bulla species have large, ovate, external shells, which are large enough to accommodate the whole snail when retracted. All species have rather similarly shaped shells, which have a deep, narrow umbilicus at the apex. No operculum is seen.
The smooth shell of Bulla spp. is ovate and expanded, with a deep, sunken involute top. Since little difference exists between the shells and in the morphology of the radular teeth, some uncertainty remains about the exact taxonomy of the species in Bulla.
Anatomy of the soft parts
The gizzard of Bulla is rather different from that of other herbivorous groups. It has three large, corneous crushing plates and ancillary corneous spines, instead of just grinding plates. These crawling snails show prominent, frilled, or lobed parapodia.
Bulla species have a soft radula.
Life habits
These snails are mostly nocturnal and can be found on shallow, sandy coasts grazing among sea grasses, feeding primarily on green algae. They bury themselves in mud when the tide is out.
Predators
In the coastal lagoons and bays of California, the colorful Navanax inermis is a well-known predator of sea slugs, especially Bulla gouldiana, which it envelopes whole.
Taxonomy
This family seems to have evolved separately in an early stage of the evolutionary history of the opisthobranchs. For a fuller treatment of the whole group see Cephalaspidea.
Bulla, Haminoea, and Smaragdinella form the well-defined monophyletic group Bulloidea, according to the 1996 phylogenetic analysis of Paula M. Mikkelsen,[2] but according to Dr. Bill Rudman and others, differences in the alimentary canal and reproductive system still put Haminoea and Smaragdinella into the separate superfamily Haminoeidea.
Historically, since the 18th century and even in the 20th century, the genus name Bulla has been used for a great number of bubble-shelled species that belonged to the order Cephalapsidea. From the mid-20th century, authors began to restrict species to the genus Bulla in its current meaning. Misidentifications were still numerous through high levels of intraspecific variability in the shell, radula, and male genital systems. The monograph by Malaquias & Reid (2008) has offered a systematic revision of this genus and has brought order in this genus [3]
Bulla ampulla
Bulla quoyii
Bulla striata
Bulla vernicosa
Species
A shell of Bulla ampulla
Bulla ampulla Linnaeus, 1758 Pacific bulla, ampulle bulla
Distribution : on sandy sublittoral bottoms of warmer seas, tropical Indo-Pacific, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines
Length : 60 mm (largest shell of the Cephalaspidea)
Description : This is the common bulla in tropical Indo-Pacific; globose, inflated, moderately solid body whorl. The white aperture is as long as the rest of the shell. The rounded outer lip is extended posteriorly beyond the apex. The columella in a reversed 'S'-shape, smooth and thinly callous. It is cream-colored with blotches of dark purple-brown.
Bulla arabica Malaquias & Reid, 2008[4]
Bulla bermudae Verrill and Bush, 1900
Distribution: Bermudas
Length: 3 mm
Bulla clausa Dall, 1889 imperforate bubble
Distribution: Florida
Length: 12 mm
Bulla gouldiana Pilsbry, 1895 California bubble, Gould's bubble, cloudy bubble
Distribution: Northwest America, California to Ecuador
Length: 30–64 mm
Description: semitransparent head, mantle, and foot are yellowish-brown with mottled pale-bluish dots; reddish to brown involute (= sunken) apex; the aperture is wide anteriorly, narrow posteriorly; their egg mass is yellow to orange tangled string of jelly, containing oval capsules. Each one contains up to 25 eggs, which develop into veliger larvae.
Bulla indolens Dall, 1927
Distribution: Georgia
Length: 7.5 mm
Description: found at depths up to 800 m
Bulla japonica T. Habe, 1976[citation needed]
Distribution: Japan
Bulla krebsii Dall, 1889
Distribution: Guadeloupe
Length: 8 mm
Description: found at depths down to 1400 m
Bulla mabillei E. A. A. Locard, 1896 Mabille's bubble
Distribution: Turkey, Canaries, Madeira, Cape Verde, West Africa
Length: 33–52 mm
Description: larger than the other European species; difficult to obtain; color is yellowish-brown with dark bluish dots
Bulla morgana Dall, 1908[citation needed]
Distribution: West America
Bulla occidentalis A. Adams, 1850 common West Indian bubble
Distribution: Brazil, North Carolina to Florida, Bahamas, Caribbean.
Length: 25 mm
Description: thin, rotund, oval shell with a smooth, glazed surface; pale color with brown spots; involute (= sunken) apex; large body whorl; long aperture, wide anteriorly; white columella.
Bulla orientalis T. Habe, 1941
Distribution: Indo Pacific
Description: brown punctuate marks on the shell
Bulla peasiana Pilsbry, 1895
Bulla punctulata A. Adams In Sowerby, 1850
Distribution: Pacific, California, Mexico, Peru
Length: 30 mm
Description: the shell looks like the one of Bulla ampula, but is smaller and more cylindrical. Its color is cream, with clouding of brown or gray in two to four spiral bands, generally spotted with squarish chocolate dots, bordered to the right by white spots.
Bulla quoyii Gray in Dieffenbach, 1843 brown bubble shell
Distribution: Southern Australia, northern New Zealand
Length: 44 mm-60 mm
Description: The calcified shell has a gray-brown color, with blotches of various shades of brown; the snail has a bright honey-golden color. The hind extremities of the headshield have evolved into tentacles, directing the water over Hancock's organ. The egg-mass is a jelly-like sphere, with the eggs in a spiral string. After the breeding period, there occurs a mass mortality of the animals, just like the sea hares.
Bulla solida Gmelin, 1791 solid bubble
Distribution: Mexico, Florida, Texas, Cuba, Colombia.
Length: 30–52 mm
Description: found at depths to 25 m
A shell of Bulla striata
Bulla striata Bruguière, 1792 common Atlantic bubble, striate bubble
Distribution: Mediterranean, Morocco, Canaries, Azores, Atlantic Ocean, Florida
Length: 12–30 mm
Description: The shell is thin, delicate and rather narrow. The body whorl is oval and convex. The smooth elongated aperture narrows posteriorly, but is wide anteriorly. The columellar callus is rather small; The thin outer lip is incurved and extends a little beyond the apex; The color is brown-gray, with darker, smudged dots and dashes, spread unevenly over the surface. The surface is smooth, with some spiral grooves at the posterior end and at the apical umbilicus. There is no operculum. The foot is well developed. There are no parapodia (fleshy winglike outgrowths). The broadened head has no tentacles. The gills and the osphradium are inside the mantle cavity. The radula has three laterals on each side of the central tooth.
Bulla vernicosa Gould, 1859 (most probably a color variant of Bulla ampulla)
Distribution: Indo Pacific, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Tonga
Length: 27–50 mm
Description: white-colored shell with lightbrown spots
Synonyms
Extended list of synonyms
Other species
In addition to the above, a several names in Bulla apply to the species Akera bullata, including Bulla akera (Gmelin, J.F., 1791), Bulla norwegica (Bruguière, J.G., 1789), Bulla canaliculata (Olivi, 1792), Bulla resiliens (Donovan, E., 1801), Bulla fragilis (Lamarck, J.B.P.A. de, 1822), Bulla hanleyi (Adams A. in Sowerby G.B. II, 1850/1855), Bulla elastica (Sandri & Danilo, 1856), Bulla farrani (Norman, 1890), Bulla globosa (Cantraine, F.J., 1840)[5][6]
References
Gofas, S. (2010). Bulla Linnaeus, 1758. In: Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S.; Rosenberg, G. (2010) World Marine Mollusca database. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=137716 on 2011-05-04
(Malacologia, 37(2): 375-442)
Malaquias M.A. & Reid D.G. (2008). Systematic revision of the living species of Bullidae (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Cephalaspidea), with a molecular phylogenetic analysis. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 153:453-543.
Manuel Antonio E. Malaquias and David G. Reid Systematic revision of the living species of Bullidae (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Cephalaspidea), with a molecular phylogenetic analysis. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 153, Issue 3, Page 453-543, Jul 2008, doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2008.00369.x
"Marine Species Identification Portal : Akera bullata".
"Akera bullata".
Linnaeus, C. (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Editio decima, reformata. Laurentius Salvius: Holmiae. ii, 824 pp
Powell A. W. B., New Zealand Mollusca, William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1979 ISBN 0-00-216906-1
Glen Pownall, New Zealand Shells and Shellfish, Seven Seas Publishing Pty Ltd, Wellington, New Zealand 1979 ISBN 0-85467-054-8
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