Check List 13(6): 945-950, doi: 10.15560/13.6.945
First record of Zoanthus gigantus Reimer & Tsukahara, 2006 (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) from Indian waters, South Asia
Sonia Kumari‡§, Pariyappanal Ulahannan Zacharia‡, Kannanchery Ramanathan Sreenath‡, Vasant Kripa‡, Grinson George‡‡ Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi, India§ Mangalore University, Mangalagangotri, India
Corresponding author: Sonia Kumari ( sonia_singh1010@yahoo.com ) Academic editor: Guilherme Henrique Pereira Filho © 2017 Sonia Kumari, Pariyappanal Ulahannan Zacharia, Kannanchery Ramanathan Sreenath, Vasant Kripa, Grinson George. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Kumari S, Zacharia PU, Sreenath KR, Kripa V, George G (2017) First record of Zoanthus gigantus Reimer & Tsukahara, 2006 (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) from Indian waters, South Asia. Check List 13(6): 945-950. https://doi.org/10.15560/13.6.945 |  |
Abstract
Zoanthus gigantus, family Zoanthidae, is reported for the first time from south Asia. The earlier distribution of the species has been known only from Japan, China, and Taiwan waters. Colonies of Z. gigantus were noticed along Saurashtra coast, Gujarat, during a field survey, in frame of monitoring Zoantharian diversity along Indian coast. Species was identified using morphological and histological examination. The occurrence of Z. gigantus from this additional biogeographic region highlights the distribution range extension of the species.
Keywords
Cnidaria; Zoantharia; new record; Saurashtra coast; Gujarat; climate change