A qualitative survey of freshwater Oligochaeta was conducted in selected districts of Tamil Nadu, India, from October 2013 to June 2015. Thirteen taxa were recorded from a total of 1,915 specimens of freshwater Oligochaeta examined from various random samples. Out of the 13 taxa 10 were identified to the species level, two were identified to genus level and one only to subfamily level. These provided the first reports of
A random survey of aquatic Oligochaeta was conducted in Chennai, Villupuram, Dindugal, Thiruvallur, and Sivagangai districts of Tamil Nadu from November 2010 to March 2012. Thirteen taxa were identified from a total of 644 aquatic oligochaetes examined from various qualitative samples of aquatic vegetation and sediments. Chennai district had 3 families: Naididae, Pristinidae and Tubificidae along with a polychaete. The naidids were most diverse with 5 species: Branchiodrilus semperi, Aulophorus furcatus, Dero digitata, Dero indica and Dero zeylanica, the pristinids were represented by Pristina brevichaeta and Pristina jenkinae and the tubificids by 2 species, Branchiura sowerbyi and Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri. The nine aquatic oligochaetes collected from Chennai were already reported from this region. Two naidids, Branchiodrilus semperi and D. indica, along with the tubificid Branchiura sowerbyi, were collected from Villupuram district and they constitute the first reports for that district. Limnodrilus udekemianus from Kodaikanal, Dindugal district constitutes the first report for that region of Tamil Nadu. Megadriles belonging to the family Octochaetidae (Dichogaster bolaui?) and unidentified Megascolecidae collected from Thiruvallur and Sivaganga districts respectively were found to occur in aquatic habitats.
A survey of aquatic Oligochaeta was conducted at Thiruvallur, Chennai, Kanchipuram, Villupuram and Nilgiris districts of Tamil Nadu from October 2015 to June 2016. Eleven taxa were recorded from a total of 922 specimens examined, eight of them were identified to species level. Five naidids identified during the present study: Branchiodrilus semperi, Dero dorsalis, Dero digitata, Dero indica and Dero zeylanica, and six tubificid taxa Branchiura sowerbyi, Tubificidae sp. 1, Tubificidae sp. 2, Tubificidae sp. 3, Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri and L. udekemianus. Dero dorsalis constitute the first report for Kanchipuram district. A DNA barcode sequence (GenBank accession no. MF125273) of the commercially important Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri, commonly known as ‘Tubifex worms’ in Chennai, was obtained and compared with other published COI sequences from that morphospecies from around the world.
The identity and validity of the freshwater worm Dero indica (Clitellata: Naididae; Naidinae) has been debated, and it has been suggested that it is likely to be identical with D. digitata. In this study we combine a newly generated COI sequence of D. indica with available sequences from GenBank, to estimate the phylogeny of Dero using both Bayesian Inference and Maximum Likelihood. The trees show that D. indica is well separated from D. digitata, instead it is closest to D. vaga, but with low support. Furthermore, the analyses confirm the close relationship between Dero and Branchiodrilus found in previous studies, and indicates the presence of cryptic species in D. furcata and D. digitata.
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