New records of cheilostome Bryozoa from the eastern coast of India encrusting on the exoskeleton of live horseshoe crabs of Indian Sundarbans

Swati Das,Maria Susan Sanjay Maria Susan Sanjay,K.a Subramanian K.A Subramanian,Basudev Tripathy Basudev Tripathy,C Venkatraman C Venkatraman

doi:10.11609/jott.6046.13.12.19773-19780

Swati Das, Maria Susan Sanjay Maria Susan Sanjay + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6046.13.12.19773-19780

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Abstract

Bryozoans are common commensal on hard surfaces and cover slow-moving animals like molluscans, sea turtles, brachyuran crabs, and horseshoe crabs. A total of six species of bryozoans belonging to four genus under three families of order Cheilostomatida were recorded encrusting on the carapaces of horseshoe crabs collected from Indian Sundarbans along the east coast of India and two among them, viz., Biflustra savartii (Audouin, 1826) and Sinoflustra arabianensis (Menon & Nair, 1975) are reported for the first time. Additionally, Jellyella tuberculata (Bosc, 1802) is reported for the first time from West Bengal coastal waters, previously known only from the Odisha coast of India. Both male and female horseshoe crabs were found to have been encrusted with bryozoan mats, although adequately not known about the life stages of their encrustation.

Highlights

Bryozoa is considered a minor phylum placed in between phylum Mollusca and Echinodermata and are ancient, microscopic, sessile, and colonial coelomates inhabiting both marine & freshwater ecosystem (Soja 2006)
A total of 58 Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda (Image 2) and six Tachypleus gigas were observed for bryozoan encrustation examination during the study period
A total of six bryozoan species belonging to five genera under three families of order Cheilostomatida were documented encrusting on the exoskeleton of horseshoe crabs from the Indian Sundarbans

Summary

Introduction

Bryozoa is considered a minor phylum placed in between phylum Mollusca and Echinodermata and are ancient, microscopic, sessile, and colonial coelomates inhabiting both marine & freshwater ecosystem (Soja 2006). They can erect or encrust on all types of hard, permanent or ephemeral substrates (Canu & Bassler 1920; Harmer 1926; Osburn 1940; Cook 1968; Ziko & Hamza 1987; Xi-Xing 1992; Key et al 1996). In India, Rao & Rao (1972), Debnath (1992) and Patil & Anil (2000) reported an unidentified species of Membranipora as epizoic bryozoa on both T. gigas and

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