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Morula (gastropod)

Genus of gastropods From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Morula (gastropod)
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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.[1]

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Species

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Species within the genus Morula include:

Species brought into synonymy
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Taxonomy

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In 2002, Roland Houart described two new species and revised eight others, for a total 23 species of Morula sensu stricto.[52] He had previously (1994–1995) described Habromorula as a separate genus, containing 14 species that were earlier classified with Spinidrupa sensu lato.[53] In 2004, he placed Azumamorula, Oppomorus, and Habromorula into Morula as subgenera, and moved the whole group from subfamily Rapaninae to Ergalataxinae.[54]

Molecular genetics

In 2012–2013, Claremont et al. published a study of sequences for four genes across numerous species of Morula and related molluscs.[55] 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.[56] 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.

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References

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