Gemmula

Gemmula
shells of Gemmula gemmulina
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Subclass: Caenogastropoda
Order: Neogastropoda
Superfamily: Conoidea
Family: Turridae
Genus: Gemmula
Weinkauff, 1875[1]
Type species
Pleurotoma gemmata
Hinds, 1843
Species

See text

Synonyms[2]
  • Eugemmula Iredale, 1931
  • Gemmula (Gemmula) Weinkauf, 1875
  • Pleurotoma (Gemmula) Weinkauff, 1875 (original rank)
  • Turris (Gemmula) Weinkauf, 1875

Gemmula, common name the gem turrids, is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Turridae, the turrids.[2]

These snails have been recorded as fossils from the Paleocene to the Quaternary (from 66.043 to 0.012 Ma). Fossils have been found all over the world.[3]

This genus is still regarded as paraphyletic and should be revised.[4] A high number of undescribed species are estimated to belong to Gemmula. Since independent “Gemmula-like” lineages are distributed all over the turrid tree, a revision of Gemmula would entail again a complete revision of the family Turridae.[5]

Fossil shell of Gemmula rotata from Pliocene

They are venomous with disulfide-rich polypeptides in their venom ducts.[6] These bioactive peptides are likely to become a resource for novel pharmacologically active compounds [7]

  1. ^ Weinkauff (1875). Jahrb. dtsch. malak. Ges. 2: 285.
  2. ^ a b Gemmula Weinkauff, 1875. Retrieved through: World Register of Marine Species on 3 October 2010.
  3. ^ Paleobiology Database
  4. ^ Puillandre N, Modica MV, Zhang Y, Sirovich L, Boisselier MC, Cruaud C, Holford M, Samadi S. 2012. Large-scale species delimitation method for hyperdiverse groups. Molecular Ecology 21: 2671–2691
  5. ^ * Zaharias P., Kantor Y.I., Fedosov A.E., Criscione F., Hallan A., Kano Y., Bardin J. & Puillandre N. (2020). Just the once will not hurt: DNA suggests species lumping over two oceans in deep-sea snails (Cryptogemma). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa010/5802562
  6. ^ Heralde III, Francisco M.; Julita Imperial; Pradip K. Bandyopadhyay; Baldomero M. Olivera; Gisela P. Concepcion; Ameurfina D. Santo (April 2008). "A rapidly diverging superfamily of peptide toxins in venomous Gemmula species". Toxicon. 51 (5): 890–897. doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2007.12.022. PMC 2582027. PMID 18272193.
  7. ^ Baldomero M. Olivera, David R. Hillyard and Maren Watkins, A new species of Gemmula, Weinkauff 1875; Evidence of two clades of Philippine species in the genus Gemmula, Philippine Science letters, vol. 1 (1)