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Zoogeographic Range Extension of Four Species of Flabellid Corals Under the Genus Truncatoflabellum (Scleractinian: Flabelliidae) From Indian Waters

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Abstract

A recent study was carried out in reef ecosystems of Andaman and Nicobar Islands which reported four species of azooxanthellate corals from the shallow water region as the new distributional records to Indian waters. The previous studies carried out on the scleractinian coral resulted in the documentation of the total of around only 10% of azooxanthellate corals in comparison with zooxanthellate corals from Indian waters. Four species of ahermatypic scleractinian corals such as Truncatoflabellum crassum (Milne Edwards and Haime in Ann Sci Nat Zool Ser 3(9):211–344, 1848), T. incrustatum (Cairns in Contrib Zool 486:1–136, 1989), T. aculeatum (Milne Edwards and Haime in Ann Sci Nat Zool Ser 3(9):211–344, 1848), and T. irregulare (Semper in Z Wiss Zool 22:235-280, 1872) under the family Flabelliiidae are recorded for the first time from India. All four specimens were previously recorded from Japan to the Philippines and Australian waters while only T. crassum was reported with the range of Indo-West Pacific distribution including the Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf. This paper illustrates the morphological features along with the global mapping of zoogeographic distributional ranges of the above said four newly recorded species of flabelliids from Indian waters.

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MS is prepared based on the field observation.

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Abbreviations

Pl:

Plate

Fig:

Figure

ZSI:

Zoological Survey of India

ANRC:

Andaman and Nicobar Regional Centre

Regn. No.:

Registration Number

Mm:

Millimeter

M:

Meter

Gm:

Gram

EAN:

Thecal Edge Angle

FAN:

Thecal Face Angle

GCD:

Greater Calicular Diameter

LCD:

Lesser Calicular Diameter

H:

Height

GSD:

Greater Scar Diameter

LSD:

Lesser Scar Diameter

GCD: LCD:

Ratio of Greater Calicular Diameter and Lesser Calicular Diameter

H: GCD:

Ratio of the Corallum Height and Greater Calicular Diameter

GSD: GCD:

Ratio of Basal Greater Scar Diameter to Greater Calicular Diameter of the corallum

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India for providing financial support. Authors are thankful to Dr. Dhriti Banerjee, Director, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata for necessary support and encouragement. The authors are grateful to Dr. Stephen D. Cairns, Research Scientist/Curator Emeritus, Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC for his all kinds of assistance, guides, species identification, and confirmation of species identification. The authors are thankful to the Officer-in-Charge (Zoological Survey of India, Port Blair) for support. The logistic support extended by the Department of Environment and Forests, Andaman and Nicobar Administration is duly acknowledged. Authors are thankful to the anonymous editor for carefully editing the manuscripts and providing valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zoological Survey of India, Andaman and Nicobar Regional Centre, Haddo, Port Blair, 744 102, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India

    Tamal Mondal

  2. Zoological Survey of India, M-Block, New Alipore, Kolkata, 700 053, West Bengal, India

    Chelladurai Raghunathan

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  1. Tamal Mondal
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  2. Chelladurai Raghunathan
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Contributions

Tamal Mondal: Field survey, concept, monitoring, data documentation, analysis and taxonomy, literature review, and writing - original draft; C. Raghunathan: Conceptualization, supervision, writing - review and editing.

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Correspondence to Tamal Mondal.

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Mondal, T., Raghunathan, C. Zoogeographic Range Extension of Four Species of Flabellid Corals Under the Genus Truncatoflabellum (Scleractinian: Flabelliidae) From Indian Waters. Thalassas 38, 1123–1133 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41208-022-00446-0

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