Bullaregia, Khalloufi & Béjaoui & Delicado, 2017

Khalloufi, Noureddine, Béjaoui, Mustapha & Delicado, Diana, 2017, A new genus and species of uncertain phylogenetic position within the family Hydrobiidae (Caenogastropoda, Truncatelloidea) discovered in Tunisian springs, European Journal of Taxonomy 328, pp. 1-15 : 6

Genus Bullaregia gen. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:93209E6C-8DBC-4869-BAAD-FA4692D5FAB1

Type species

Bullaregia tunisiensis sp. nov., by present designation.

Diagnosis

Shell ovate-conic, penultimate whorl tall relative to remaining whorls; aperture pyriform, angled on top; umbilicus closed by inner lip. Operculum corneous, yellowish, thin, pliable, ellipsoidal, paucispiral with submarginal nucleus. One pair of basal cusps on radular central tooth. Ctenidium bearing welldeveloped gill filaments. Presence of bursa copulatrix; unpigmented renal oviduct with a pouch at the end of the coiled section; two seminal receptacles, SR1 elongate and pedunculate, SR2 globular, sessile and less developed. Strap-like penis attached to the neck behind the right eye, with one dorsal, strap-like glandular lobe.

Etymology

Referring to the archeological site Bulla Regia, the region where the genus was found; gender feminine.

Remarks

This genus differs from conchologically similar genera from Europe (e.g., Belgrandiella , Terranigra Radoman, 1978 and Litthabitella Boeters, 1970 ) and Central Asia (e.g., Chirgisia Glöer, Boeters & Pešić, 2015 ) in bearing a strap-like penis (tapered in Belgrandiella , Terranigra and Chirgisia , but broadly triangular in Litthabitella ), with one dorsal glandular lobe (absent in all the aforementioned genera) (see Radoman 1983; Szarowska 2006; Glöer et al. 2014). Bullaregia gen. nov. resembles Terranigra and Litthabitella in having two seminal receptacles (none and one in Chirgisia and Belgrandiella , respectively), but they are distinguished by their globular shape (elongate in Terranigra and Litthabitella ), and in the position and absence of the duct. Bullaregia gen. nov. conforms to Litthabitella in the radula features, but differs from Belgrandiella in the number of basal cusps on the radular central tooth (two pairs in the latter) (see Szarowska 2006).

Based on molecular and morphological data, Szarowska (2006) tentatively classified Litthabitella within the family Assimineidae (outside Hydrobiidae ), which suggests a large genetic distance between this genus and Bullaregia gen. nov. Moreover, our genetic findings indicated that Bullaregia gen. nov. and Belgrandiella differ from each other by 17.1% COI p-distances.