Four new records of Conidae (Mollusca: Caenogastropoda) from the Andaman Islands, India

Abstract

The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago comprises 572 islands spread over an area of 8,249 sq. km. These islands are within the 'Indo-Malayan region' and near the 'faunistic centre' from which other Indo-West Pacific regions recruit their tropical marine fauna (Ekman, 1953). The topographically complex nature of the nearshore environments of these islands creates a plethora of niches that support a rich and diverse molluscan fauna. Many of the Conus species (e.g., C. geographus Linnaeus, 1758; C. miles Linnaeus, 1758; and C. striatus Linnaeus, 1758) that occupy these islands are broadly distributed throughout the Indo-West Pacific. However, a few Indo-West Pacific species (e.g., Conus andamanensis Smith, 1878; and C. araneosus nicobaricus Hwass in Bruguière, 1792) are restricted to small geographic regions (Röckel et. al. 1995). Early oceanographic expeditions of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands that began in 1788 report only 10 Conus species from these islands (Smith, 1878; Melvill & Sykes, 1898; Preston, 1908). More recently, Subba Rao (1980) of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) reports a total of 51 Conus species from this region. In the past two decades, the Conus fauna has not been studied extensively due to lack of focused studies in the Andaman andNicobar Islands. Several recent surveys conducted by the Andaman and Nicobar Centre for Ocean Science and Technology investigated the intertidal and subtidal macrobenthic fauna of theAndaman Islands.

First Record of <I>Titiscania limacina</I> Bergh, 1890 (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from India

“…The most notable work among these is by Subba Rao (2003) and Subba Rao and Dey (2000), who reported 1,282 species of molluscs from Andaman & Nicobar Is. More recent work is by Arumugam et al (2010), Chandra and Rajan (2010), and Franklin et al (2013Franklin et al ( , 2014. Some recent studies focused mainly on lesser studied opisthobranch fauna (Raghunathan et al 2010a,b;Ramakrishna et al 2010;Sreeraj et al 2010Sreeraj et al , 2012Sreeraj et al , 2013.…”

Three new distribution records of Conidae (Gastropoda: Neogastropoda: Conoidea) from the Andaman Islands, India

“…Subsequently, Rao & Dey (2000) and Rao (2003) updated the number of species to 53. Franklin et al (2013) added the records of four species to the Conidae of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.…”

Biomedical Potential of the Neglected Molluscivorous and Vermivorous Conus Species

“…However, geophysical environment is not the only factor that influences the Conus species distribution. For example, despite similar oceanic and climate conditions, more than 77 Conus species have been discovered in Indian coastal waters, especially in the Tamil Nadu Coast and the Andaman Islands [4][5][6], with fewer than 20 species reported on the eastern side of the Andaman Sea [7]. Nowadays, Conus species are generally overexploited, and some species are now endangered.…”