Some Polychaetous annelids from the Andaman waters

Abstract

The Andaman group of islands in the Bay of Bengal is well known for its rich marine invertebrate fauna. In future years, it is possible that those interested in marine zoology are attracted largely to these less exploited regions for purposes of general collections. The need for an authenticated faunistic list, therefore, cannot be overemphasised. At present, information on specific animal groups of this region in a consolidated form is available only for fish or molluscs. More often such information is found scattered in the descriptive catalogues of the Indian Museum. The polychaetes from Andamans available in the Indian Museum collections have been described by Fauvel (1932) and subsequently incorporated in the Fauna of India series by the same author (1953). However, 43 species of polychaetes have been listed in the following account out of which nearly half of them have not been known previously from the Andamans. Even out of these, two are new records for the Indian waters. The occurrence of the genus Arenicola in this part of the tropical belt, as already communicated by us in detail (1963), is of special significance because, excepting along the shores of Bombay, this is the only other record of this genus in the Indian waters. In the present account of the various species of polychaetes some figures with essential details of the setae etc. are included together with brief descriptions. Similarly, a fairly complete Ust of the latest synonyms are also furnished.