Bulinus jousseaumei is a species of tropical freshwater snail

Freshwater snail

A freshwater snail is one kind of freshwater mollusc, the other kind being freshwater clams and mussels, i.e. freshwater bivalves. Specifically a freshwater snail is a gastropod that lives in a watery non-marine habitat. The majority of freshwater gastropods have a shell, with very few exceptions....

, an aquatic

Aquatic animal

An aquatic animal is an animal, either vertebrate or invertebrate, which lives in water for most or all of its life. It may breathe air or extract its oxygen from that dissolved in water through specialised organs called gills, or directly through its skin. Natural environments and the animals that...

 gastropod mollusk in the family Planorbidae

Planorbidae

Planorbidae, common name the ramshorn snails or ram's horn snails, is a family of air-breathing freshwater snails, aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusks....

, the ramshorn snails and their allies.
Like other planorbids, the shell of the species is sinistral

Sinistral

Sinistral and dextral are scientific terms that describe chirality or relative direction in a number of disciplines.The terms are derived from the Latin words for “left” and “right” ....

 in coiling.

Distribution

The distribution of Bulinus jousseaumei includes Western Africa:

• Burkina Faso
• Gambia
• Mali
• Niger
• Nigeria
• Senegal
• Togo

The type locality for this species is the Sénégal River

Sénégal River

The Sénégal River is a long river in West Africa that forms the border between Senegal and Mauritania.The Sénégal's headwaters are the Semefé and Bafing rivers which both originate in Guinea; they form a small part of the Guinean-Malian border before coming together at Bafoulabé in Mali...

 near Médine, Mali

Médine, Mali

Médine is a small town and principal settlement of the commune of Hawa de Mbaya in the Cercle of Kayes in the Kayes Region of south-western Mali...

.

Description

The width of the shell is 8 mm. The height of the shell is 11 mm.

Diploid chromosome number is 2n = 36.

Ecology

This snail lives in permanent streams. It can live in a water current that has a speed up to 0.86 m·s^-1 based on laboratory experiments.

The male part of the reproductive system

Reproductive system of gastropods

The reproductive system of gastropods varies greatly from one group to another within this very large and diverse taxonomic class of animals...

 is developed "slightly earlier" (protandry) in Bulinus jousseaumei.

This species is an intermediate host

Intermediate host

A secondary host or intermediate host is a host that harbors the parasite only for a short transition period, during which some developmental stage is completed. For trypanosomes, the cause of sleeping sickness, humans are the primary host, while the tsetse fly is the secondary host...

 for Schistosoma curassoni and for Schistosoma haematobium

Schistosoma haematobium

Schistosoma haematobium is an important digenetic trematode, and is found in the Middle East, India, Portugal and Africa. It is a major agent of schistosomiasis; more specifically, it is associated with urinary schistosomiasis....

.

Further reading

• Green P., Dussart G. B. J. & Gibson C. (1992). "Surfacing and water-leaving behaviour of the freshwater pulmonate snails Lymnaea peregra (Müller), Biomphalaria glabrata (Say) and Bulinus jousseaumei (Dautzenberg)". Journal of Molluscan Studies
  Journal of Molluscan Studies
  The Journal of Molluscan Studies is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research in malacology.Previous names of this journal include Proceedings of the Malacological Society, Proceedings of the Malacological Society of London The Journal of Molluscan Studies is a peer-reviewed scientific...
  
  58(2): 169-179. doi:10.1093/mollus/58.2.169.
• Wright C. A. (1957). "Studies on the structure and taxonomy of Bulinus jousseaumei (Dautzenberg)". Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Zoology 5: 1-28.