AS: Busycon pulleyi Hollister, 1958 Lightning Whelk
Distribution: Louisiana to Texas to Mexico. Size: 200 mm (8 in). Description: Color light brown to yellowish with dark brown axial bands that correspond with shoulder spines of body whorl, with a broad, spiral, white band on periphery of body whorl; shape pearlike, sinistral; sculpture of spiral threads; spire turreted, 1/5 height of shell; aperture pear shaped; siphonal canal long. Habitat: Infaunal. Just offshore in bays. Remarks: Wise et al. (2004) considered B. pulleyi a synonym of B. sinistrum Hollister, 1958. Their allozyme data, however, showed B. sinistrum from west Florida and B. perversum (Linnaeus, 1758) from Yucatan to be more similar to each other than either was to B. pulleyi from Texas (Rosenberg et al. 2009). Wise et al. also considered B. sinistrum to be a subspecies of B. perversum. Their criterion for subspecies recognition showed less than 2% observed DNA sequence divergence for cytochrome oxidase I. However, this does not contradict that these species may be different since recently evolved species may have minor sequence divergence (Rosenberg et al. 2009). The DNA data showed the 2 species to be reciprocally monophyletic. Also, there are many reports of B. perversum and B. sinistrum occurring together in the southern Gulf of Mexico, which contradicts subspecies status. B. perversum has been recorded in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, but these records may be based on confusion with B. pulleyi (Rosenberg et al. 2009). B. pulleyi is therefore maintained as a species separate from B. perversum and B. sinistrum (Rosenberg et al. 2009).