''Bourciera'' is a

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 ...

neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ...

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on o ...

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

mollusk Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...

s or

land snail A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. ''Land snail'' is the common name for terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have gastropod shell, shel ...

s in the family

Helicinidae Helicinidae is a family of small tropical land snails, terrestrial operculate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicinoidea. Name These snails are not at all closely related to the air-breathing land snails, despite a superficial simila ...

. All species in the genus have an operculum. 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. H. Burrington Baker considered ''Bourciera'' among the most primitive of terrestrial mollusks.

Distribution

The genus was initially described from Ecuador based on specimens collected by

Jules Bourcier Claude Marie Jules Bourcier (19 February 1797 – 9 March 1873) was a French naturalist and expert on hummingbirds.Prosopo ...

, after whom it was named. It is also known to occur in Peru.

Species

Species within the genus ''Bourciera'' include: * ''

Bourciera fraseri ''Bourciera'' is a genus of neotropical terrestrial gastropod mollusks or land snails in the family Helicinidae. All species in the genus have an operculum. In 1907, an attempt was made to rename the genus ''Pseudhelicina'', sometimes correct ...

'' Pfeiffer 1859 * ''

Bourciera helicinaeformis ''Bourciera'' is a genus of neotropical terrestrial gastropod mollusks or land snails in the family Helicinidae. All species in the genus have an operculum. In 1907, an attempt was made to rename the genus ''Pseudhelicina'', sometimes correct ...

'' Pfeiffer 1853 * '' Bourciera striatula'' Miller 1879 * '' Bourciera viridissima'' Miller 1879Miller, Konrad (1879). Die Binnenmollusken von Ecuador. ''Malakozoologische Blätter'' 26 n. s.): 117-203

References

Helicinidae Taxa named by Ludwig Karl Georg Pfeiffer Gastropod genera {{Helicinidae-stub