Bourciera
Genus of gastropods
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bourciera is a genus of neotropical terrestrial gastropod mollusks or land snails in the family Helicinidae. All species in the genus have an operculum.
| Bourciera | |
|---|---|
| |
| Bourciera sp., from Pichincha, Ecuador | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| Order: | Cycloneritida |
| Superfamily: | Helicinoidea |
| Family: | Helicinidae |
| Genus: | Bourciera Pfeiffer, 1852[1] |
| Type species | |
| Cyclostoma heliciniforme L. Pfeiffer, 1853 | |
| Synonyms | |
|
Pseudhelicina Sykes, 1907 (unnecessary replacement name of Bourciera L. Pfeiffer, 1852) | |
In 1907, an attempt was made to rename the genus Pseudhelicina, sometimes corrected to Pseudohelicina, on the basis of the fact that Bourciera was also the name of a genus of birds, but according to MolluscaBase this replacement was unnecessary and Bourciera is still used.[2] H. Burrington Baker considered Bourciera among the most primitive of terrestrial mollusks.[3]
Distribution
The genus was initially described from Ecuador based on specimens collected by Jules Bourcier, after whom it was named. It is also known to occur in Peru.[4]
