genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
of sea
slugs
Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced shell, or only a sma ...
in the family
Plakobranchidae
Plakobranchidae is a family (biology), family of sea slugs, marine (ocean), marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Plakobranchoidea. They superficially resemble nudibranchs but they are sacoglossans, members of the clade Sacog ...
.
Distribution
Distribution include warm waters in
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
and in
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
. Reports from Indo-Pacific were not confirmed.
Species
There are five recognized species in the genus ''Bosellia'':
* '' Bosellia cohellia'' Marcus, 1978
* '' Bosellia corinneae'' Marcus, 1973
* '' Bosellia curasoae'' Er. Marcus & Ev. Marcus, 1970
* '' Bosellia levis'' Fernandez-Ovies & Ortea, 1986
* '' Bosellia mimetica'' Trinchese, 1890
''Bosellia cohellia'' has an uncertain taxonomic status according to Jensen (2007).
Phylogenetic
In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...
results by Händeler et al. (2009) indicate that the Caribbean "''Bosellia marcusi''" described by Eveline Agnes du Bois-Reymond Marcus (1972) is a derived species of '' Elysia''. Morphological examination indicates that the parapodia of "''B. marcusi''" have secondarily fused over the dorsum, producing a superficial similarity with ''Bosellia''. ''Bosellia marcusi'' Marcus, 1972 is a synonym for '' Elysia marcusi'' (Marcus, 1972).
References
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