Morula (gastropod) explained

Morula is a genus of small, predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the subfalily Ergalataxinae of the family Muricidae, the murex snails or rock snails.

Species

Species within the genus Morula include:

Species brought into synonymy

Taxonomy

In 2002, Roland Houart described two new species and revised eight others, for a total 23 species of Morula Latin: sensu stricto.[1] He had previously (1994–1995) described Habromorula as a separate genus, containing 14 species that were earlier classified with Spinidrupa sensu lato.[2] In 2004, he placed Azumamorula, Oppomorus, and Habromorula into Morula as subgenera, and moved the whole group from subfamily Rapaninae to Ergalataxinae.[3]

Molecular genetics

In 2012–2013, Claremont et al. published a study of sequences for four genes across numerous species of Morula and related molluscs.[4] They found a clade of 11 species, and proposed a restricted definition of Morula to include: M. aspera, M. benedicta, M. (Habromorula) biconica, M. chrysostoma, M. (H.) coronata, M. (H.) japonica, M. nodicostata, M. (H.) spinosa, M. (H.) striata, M. uva (type species), and M. zebrina.

Habromorula did not form a clade in this analysis, however the authors noted that "monophyly of this morphologically distinctive group is not strongly contradicted, so that further sampling and analysis could yet support Habromorula as a monophyletic subgenus of Morula".

Subgenus Morula (Oppomorus) formed a separate clade; the authors proposed returning Oppomorus to genus level, containing O. nodulifera, O. funiculata and O. purpureocincta.

M. ceylonica, M. granulata, M. marginalba, M. musiva, and an undescribed species formed a distinct clade related to Muricodrupa. The authors proposed resurrecting the genus name Tenguella, for which T. granulata is the type species. They note that these species "have not previously been recognized as a morphologically distinctive group".

"Morula" anaxares was weakly related to Muricodrupa fenestrata, and "Morula" nodulosa was sister to the Tenguella–Muricodrupa group. "Morula" parva and "Morula" echinata placed in a third major clade, separate from the two that contain Tenguella and the main Morula group, respectively.

In response to the gene-sequence phylogeny, Houart, Zuccon and Puillandre formally described new genera in 2019: Claremontiella, Murichorda, and Lauta.[5] C. nodulosa, C. consanguinea, Mur. rumphiusi, and L. parva were previously in Morula. They also moved Morula anaxares to Muricodrupa anaxares, and reassigned M. palmeri to Pascula, the latter on basis of morphology rather than gene sequence.

Notes and References

  1. Houart. Roland. 2002. Comments on a group of small Morula s.s. species (Gastropoda: Muricidae: Rapaninae) from the Indo-West Pacific with the description of two new species . Novapex . 3 . 4 . 97–118 .
  2. Houart . Roland . Some notes on the genus Spinidrupa Habe and Kosuge, 1966 (Muricidae: Ergalataxinae), with the description of Habromorula gen. nov. (Muricidae: Rapaninae) and four new species from the Indo-West Pacific. . Iberus . 1994 . 12 . 21–31. BHL: info digitised copy of printed article
  3. Houart . Roland . Review of the Recent species of Morula (Oppomorus), M. (Azumamorula) and M. (Habromorula) (Gastropoda: Muricidae: Ergalataxinae) . Novapex . 2004-11-10 . 5 . 4 . 91–130 .
  4. Claremont. Martine. Houart. Roland. Williams. Suzanne T.. Reid. David G.. 2013-02-01. A molecular phylogenetic framework for the Ergalataxinae (Neogastropoda: Muricidae) . Journal of Molluscan Studies. en. 79. 1. 19–29. 10.1093/mollus/eys028. 0260-1230. free.
  5. Houart. Roland. Zuccon. Dario. Puillandre. Nicolas. 2019-04-09. Description of new genera and new species of Ergalataxinae (Gastropoda: Muricidae).

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Morula (gastropod)".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.