Ectoparasite of somes ea-urchins in the circalittoral. – Found on Psammechinus microtuberculatus (Blainville, 1825), 50-80m deep, Granada, Andalucia, S. Spain. 2mm. Original pictures provided by B. Cunningham Aparicio (ES) – (CC BY-NC-SA).
« Pelseneeria minor: shell white with a yellowish mucro; height 1,5mm, best width 1mm. Its mucro is well developed and almost cylindrical; it measures 0,2mm height and 0,1mm in diameter. The following whorl is extremely reduced; the last whorl is oval-shaped and wide: it fills the 5/6 of the total height. » – R. Koehler & C. Vaney: “Description d’un nouveau genre de Prosobranches parasites sur certains Échinides”, Bulletin de l’Institut océanographique de Monaco num.118, Monaco 1908.
Specimens of Pelseneeria with their clutches:
Fig.1: Genocidaris maculata with P. Minor;
Fig.2: Echinus affinis with P. Profunda.
Fig.5: usual shape — Fig.7: its mucro. Our pictured specimen does not match exactly all these descriptions.
Here is a comment made by Christiane Delongueville about this population from southwestern Spain: « According to Bouchet and Warén, there are two european species of Pelseneeria with a brown columella; one, minute, is the Pelseneeria minor from deep water in Mediterranean and Canarias; the second one, larger, is Pelseneeria stylifera from the north of Europe. The specimens we met and photographied in Spain are rather tall (up to 5mm) and from shallower waters than those in which lives usually P. minor (30m deep in Alborán sea, 11-30m in Algarve). Consequently, this designation of “minor” for these specimens would be unwise. After having debated on this topic with Anders Warén, it appears that, at this point, it is not possible to determine wether these specimens represent a peculiar species “from the strait of Gibraltar and its surroundings”, or if it is a giant P. minor, or a P. stylifera that would occur in southern Europe… or if all this would only be a single species. […] To conclude, only genetical studies could provide a correct vision of this “Pelseneeria complex”. »
« Here is a picture with a Pelseneeria on a Psammechinus microtuberculatus from Marbella (Andalucia). I selected this photography because one can see, around this Eulimid, a clutch in which appear numerous little Pelseneeria reduced to their protoconch and still inside their oviger capsula. »
Original picture provided by C. Delongueville & R. Scaillet.
– (CC BY-NC-SA) –
