A Study on the Zoogeography of Indian Penaeidae

Angsuman Chanda

Abstract

From the distributional point of view of Penaeid prawn, Indian region in the present study is divided into three main sub-regions viz., East Coast, West Coast including Laccadive-Minicoy Islands and Andaman Islands. Present study also records existence of 79 species in the coastalwater of India. Out of 79 species 9 are endemic, 24 are common in east coast, west coast and Andaman Islands; 16 species are restricted to East coast, 13 are restricted to west coast, 2 are restricted to Laccadiv Islands, 3 species are restricted to Andaman Islands only. Global Analysis shows that most species are distributed within Indo-West Pacific region and only 6 species are distributed up to east Atlantic region. A statistical analysis based on the distribution of prawn shows more moderate similarity between east coast and west coast in India and strong similarity between sub-region 1 and 4 of Indo-West Pacific indicates that the Indian species are more common with Indonesian and Indo-Malaysian than East African species.

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