Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

PALAEMONID PRAWNS OF PURBA MEDINIPUR WITH TWO NEW RECORDS FROM WEST BENGAL, INDIA

Priti Ranjan Pahari, Mitali Das and Tanmay Bhattacharya

Abstract

This paper reports 8 species of palaemonid prawns viz., Macrobrachium dayanum, M. equidens, M.gangeticum, M.hendersodayanum, M. javanicum, M. tiwarii, Exopalaemon styliferus and Leptocarpus fluminicola from Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal. Of these M. hendersodayanum and M. tiwarii are being recorded for first time from West Bengal and M. javanicum is reported for the first time from the district. Thus the total number of palaemonid species of Purba Medinipur stand to 18. It has also been suggested that Nematopalaemon tenuipes has gone locally extinct in this region since it has not been recorded after 1969.