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Introduction
Today’s article will be about…The Cloudy Bubble Snail!
These bubbly creatures like to glide and hang out in Morro Bay, CA. The Cloudy Bubble Snail, with the scientific name of Bulla Gouldiana, also sometimes known as Bulla Nebulosa, is a beautiful snail living in shallow waters (less than 40 feet deep) off North and South America’s Pacific coasts from Morro Bay to Ecuador. They live on the bottom of Morro Bay or the sandy bottoms of the Pacific Ocean.
The cloudy bubble snail’s scientific family name is: Bullidae. They, like all snails, are from the class “gastropoda”, or gastropods. The Cloudy Bubble Snail’s “bubble” is an extremely calcified exterior shell. These cloudlike creatures are semi-transparent and paper-thin. Their extremely calcified shells allow them to withstand the harsh environment and currents in Morro Bay.
The cloudy bubble snail populations in Morro Bay are also vulnerable to sudden influxes of fresh water from the mainland. In the recent past, influxes of fresh water into areas of Morro Bay have temporarily pushed out the salt water in that area, causing the cloudy bubble snails in that area to die because they cannot filter fresh water. Morro Bay can reach from 3 feet to 23 feet in depth. It has a relatively narrow mouth that opens onto the open ocean. The rest of Morro Bay is a long estuary that extends inland from the mouth, and extends past a penninsula. Morro Bay’s shape means that a large amount of fresh water coming from the mainland may not be able to mix with salt water quickly, because the amount of salt water that can enter or leave Morro Bay is constricted by the Bay’s narrow mouth. Therefore the salinity or water chemistry of the area where the fresh water entered the bay may be disrupted, which might harm marine creatures there. These marine creatures can include cloudy bubble snails and their predators.
It is the author’s belief that during 2017, when large influxes of fresh water came by from the hills nearby into the bay, one of the cloudy bubble snails’ predators populations shrank tremendously, causing a “bubble snail boom” in Morro Bay.
Cloudy Bubble Snails can sometimes reach lengths of about 55 millimeters (mm) long, which is about the distance between the two lines below.
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Cloudy Bubble Snails are mostly nocturnal creatures. From my calculations, Bulla Gouldiana commonly likes eel grass as its environment. They have managed to survive in areas of Morro Bay that do not have eel grass. However, eel grass and other aquatic grasses slow down currents near the sea bed, which can help protect individual cloudy bubble snails in the eel grass, and certainly protect their eggs.
During the sunlight hours, cloudy bubble snails burrow through the sand with underground tunnels that collapse behind them. They leave mucus trails through the tunnels. They primarily feed off of green algae. Their shells are tucked into their semi-transparent bodies, almost obstructing them and becoming absorbed into it, thus forming a bubble.
During their mating seasons, Bulla Gouldiana, and most others known in their class, gather in large groups to breed. Bubble snails’ mating season is in the summertime. They are polyamorous and mate with multiple partners each season. Bubble snails are also hermaphroditic. When two snails mate, each gives sperm to the other one. Each one contains up to 25 eggs, which develop into veliger larvae. When they mate, they leave their eggs in vegetation such as eel grass, and their egg cases are noodle-shaped. The mollusk shell of the bubble snails can have their growth rate accelerated or slowed down by the temperature of the water.
The eyes and optic systems of a cloudy bubble snail have been studied a lot by researchers, and have important to researchers trying to understand the way the snail can tell time and decide when night has arrived so the snail can come out and eat. The cloudy bubble snail’s eyes have their own molecular circadian rhythm timers.
The author found no indication that cloudy bubble snails can be kept in aquariums, but any aquarium where they are kept would have to be a saltwater aquarium, because they are saltwater snails.
It is unclear whether bubble snails are poisonous or not. It is also unclear whether they can be eaten by humans (Not that the author would necessarily advocate this even if it were possible).
The cloudy bubble snail’s main consumer and threat in California is the California aglaja, Navanax Inermis, a large predatory sea slug species, which likes to consume them. The California aglaja can reach 400% of the length of the Bulla Gouldiana. A picture of the California aglaja is below.
The author found no information about cloudy bubble snails’ lifespan, or how climate change has affected or will affect them. People should do further research into these two topics, and also research into how cloudy bubble snails’ survival at different stages of their life cycle is affected by changes in climate and other conditions. We must also research how climate change affects other species that also influence the cloudy bubble snail. For example, there is reason to believe that climate change is negatively affecting eel grass species that cloudy bubble snails like.
The ”tolerance” range for a marine species, for a characteristic like temperature is the range in which that marine species can survive. The “optimal” range for a marine species, for a characteristic like temperature is the range which that marine species most prefers. Ocean temperatures may be changing so that parts of the ocean that were formerly within the “optimal” temperature range for eelgrass for most of the year, and the ”tolerance” range for eelgrass for all of the year, might now be out of the “tolerance” range for part of it. This would be enough to kill eelgrass in areas that are out of the tolerance range for part of the year, because eelgrass, being a plant, cannot move.
The cloudy bubble snail is one species in a group, bubble snails, that are distributed throughout the world in coastal areas. New bubble snail species are still being discovered.
Ideas for Further Research
How long do cloudy bubble snails live, and what factors affect their lifespan?
How is the survival of cloudy bubble snails at different stages of their life cycle affected by water conditions?
Are cloudy bubble snails poisonous?
How does a decrease in eelgrass affect cloudy bubble snails?
Ideas for Further Public Action
Limit freshwater discharge into bays and other confined ocean areas in general, especially Morro Bay, to make sure that the saltwater organisms living there are not “swamped” by freshwater. Research each confined ocean area to find a limit for the amount of freshwater that can be discharged there.
Conclusion
New bubble snail species are being discovered all the time, and we have much to learn about this interesting and slimy species, and about how they interact with other species.
References
Block et. al., Biological Clocks in the Retina: Cellular Mechanisms of Biological Timekeeping, International Review of Cytology, Vol. 146, p. 83-146.
Walter et. al., Large-Scale Erosion Driven By Intertidal Eelgrass Loss in an Estuarine Environment, Estuarine, Coastal, and Shelf Science, July 2020.
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