Hemichordata: India

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This is an extract from ANIMAL RESOURCES OF INDIA: Protozoa to Mammalia State of the Art. Zoological Survey of India, 1991. By Professor Mohammad Shamim Jairajpuri Director, Zoological Survey of India and his team of devoted scientists. The said book is an enlarged, updated version of The State of Art Report: Zoology Edited by Dr. T. N. Ananthakrishnan, Director, Zoological Survey of India in 1980.

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Hemichordata

Introduction

Phylum Hemichordata consists exclusively of marine organisms occurring from tidal areas to great depths with few planktonic representatives. It is divided into three classes, i.e. Enteropneusta, Pterobranchia and Planctosphaeroidea. Our knowledge on this group in India is based on the collections made from the Gulf of Mannar, Madras coast, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Laccadive Islands and the Gujarat coast.

Historical Resume

Punnet (1903) described enteropneust worms from Laccadive and Maldive Islands. Menon (1904) working on dredged collections off Madras coast, described three species of which one was new to science. Later, Rao (1955) followed it up to describe several more species from the same area. Ptychodera flava from Krusadai Island was made more popular by other workers (but wrongly identified by few as Balanoglossus) i.e. Rao (1934), Ramanujan (1935), Devanesan &Varadarajan (1940), Kuriyan (1949) and Rao (1953, 19$5 & 1962). Balasubramaniam (1978) described two species of Tomaria from Porto Novo waters. Pillay (1950) described the only enteropneust worm collected fonn Gujarat coast

Pillay (1950) identified specimens of enteropneust worms collected from Okha coast. Glandiceps "w/ayanus and Glossobalanus minutus were identified by Dhandapani from Andaman &Nicobar Islands and Maldive Islands. No samples of either Pterobranchia or Planctosphaeroidea were collected so far by the Zoological Survey of India parties. The Tornaria larvae that were collected during the 46th cruise on board F.O.R. V. Sagar Sampada and those that are being collected by RV Chota Investigator are being worked out by P. Dhandapani at Marine Biological Station, Madras. Further, Dhandapani during his recent surveys of the Gulf of Mannar, discovered the presence of Ptychodera flava (Enteropneusta) both near the Pamban Light House area and the Pullivasal Island.

Jayapaul Azaria, University of Madras conducts bio-chemical experiments on Ptychodera flava. Balasubramaniam, CAS for marine biology, Porto Novo, worked on Tomaria larvae. Bjorn Berg, Universidae de Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Staisny, Institute of Van Beneden, Belgium also work on Tomaria. Burdon-Jones, Plymouth Laboratory, England, and Thomas, University of Adelaide, Australia are experts on enteropneust worms. Practically no work on Pterobranchia is being done anywhere in the world.

Areas to be explored

Survey: Dredging should be done beyond 100 Il) level allover the Indian Ocean and its island waters: efforts should be made to look for hemichordates since this group is not covered adequately from Indian waters.

Taxonomic study

Taxonomic studies on families Protobalanidae, Cephalodiscidae and Planctospaeridae need to be undertaken.

Expertise India

In ZSI

P. Dhandapani, Marine Biological Station, ZSI, 100, Santhome High Road, Madras -28. [Enteropneusta].

Elsewhere

M. Balasubramaniam, Reader, CAS for Marine Biology, Porto Novo, Tamil Nadu, India. [Enteropneusta].

Jayapaul Azaria, Reader, Dept. of Zoology, University of Madras, India. [Enteropneusta].

Abroad

Barrington, E. J. W., Dept. of Zoology, The University of Nottingham, England. [Enteropneusta].

Bjorn Berg, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. [Enteropneusta].

C. Burdon Jones, School of Biological Sciences, University of Townsville, Australia. [Enteropneusta].

Thomas, I. M., University of Adelaide, Australia. [Enteropneusta].

Cyprian Kulick, Institute of Paleozoology, Polish Academy of Zoology, Warsaw. [Ptrerobranchia] .