Reptiles

List of commonly observed reptiles in mangroves are give

Mammals

Mammal

Sea-Anemones

Actiniarians are popularly called ‘sea-anemones’ because of their flower-like appearance of the expanded oral disc. They are very common animals of the sea-shore and muddy intertidal belt of estuary. They belong to the Phylum Cnidaria having solitary, cylindrical body. The body is divided into oral disc, column and base. Different workers like- Annandale (1907&1915), Carlgren (1925), Panikkar (1936), Parulekar (1968), Seshaiya and Cuttres (1971), Misra (1975&1976), Misra and Soota (1981), Bairagi (1998) etc. had worked on sea-anemones in Indian waters. Altogether 20 species under 17 genera belong to 10 families have been recorded from India. Among these only 7 species are reported from West Bengal but Bairagi (1998) had confirmed the occurence of 9 species under 7 genera and 5 families from Hoogly- Matla estuarine area of West Bengal

Molluscs

Molluscs constitute a major group in the animal kingdom. In number of species, the mollusca is the second largest phylum after arthropoda. About 1,00,000 living species of molluscs are reported to be occuring in the world. They occupy almost all possible habitats - marine, brackish water, freshwater, land and also arboreal in some groups. India harbours an approximate total of 3,271 species of molluscs spread over nearly 591 genera and 220 families (Mitra and Dey, 1992). On the other hand, a checklist of molluscs of Indian estuaries includes a total of 245 species (120 gastropods and 125 bivalvs) [Subba Rao and Surya Rao ,1985]. They play a significant role in maintaining the steady state of the mangrove ecosystem and enhance its biological potentiality. Molluscs constitute an important faunal component in the food web of any estuarine-marine coastal environment. Previously several taxonomic and ecological survey of estuarine-marine molluscs of India was conducted by several workers (Banford,1867; Annandale and Kemp, 1916; Annandale and Prasad, 1919; Subba Rao et al., 1983; Subba Rao et al., 1992, Khalua et al., 2003). The present study deals with the taxonomic survey (34 species, 24 genera, 22 families and 9 orders) of intertidal macrobenthic molluscs

Avian Fauna

Avian Faun

Crustacea (Crab)

Brachyuran crabs, a bioenergetically significant group constitute one of the most dominant macrobenthic faunal components in all the mangrove ecosystems of the world. Several species of commercially important crabs like - Scylla serrata occur in mangroves. Brachyuran crabs play significant role to maintain the steady state condition of mangrove ecosystems several ways. The feedig activities of detritivore crabs such as - Uca, Macrophthalmus, Dotilla, Sesarma etc. help in the degradation of organic matter, especially mangrove litters and decaying woods. They also influence the functioning of mangrove ecosystems as burrowers since their repeated burrowing and reburrowing activities enhance the soil aeration, mixing of different soil profiles, nutrient cycling, maintaining of fluidity etc. (Montague, 1980, 1982 ; Bertness, 1985). Furthermore, crabs create a wide variety of bioturbation structures which are very significant for trapping sediments and mangrove seeds (Choudhury and Choudhury, 1994). In India several taxonomic works on estuarine and mangrove brachyuran crabs have been done (Chakraborty et al.,1986; Mandal and Nandi, 1989; Chakraborty and Choudhury, 1992; Dev Roy and Das, 2000 etc.). A total of 55 species of brachyuran crabs under 31 genera have been reported earlier from the mangrove habitats of India (Dev Roy and Das, 2000). Eighteen species of brachyuran crabs under 9 genera and 4 families were identified from Sundarbans Mangrove Ecosystems (Chakraborty and Choudhury, 1992)

Benthos - Polychaetes

Polychaetes are one of the major benthic group of animals just like molluscs and crustaceans. Globally 12,620 species of Polychaetes are supposed to be occurring and in India around, 1,093 species representing 8.66% of the total number of polychaete species are known. Polychaetes are very important in the marine and brackish water ecosystems extending from the abyssal depths to the inter-tidal regions. Its major role is through the biomass formation in the benthic as well as in the pelagic aquatic systems as sedentary and pelagic polychaetes and through the different larval forms released by them. It also forms the major food for crustaceans, molluscs as well as for fishes. Because of the special adaptive nature of this group, Polychaetes are distributed in almost all ecological conditions, both in the macro and micro environments having different ranges of salinities and dissolved oxygen. Certain species survive in the anaerobic conditions also

Ichthyofauna of the Mangrove Ecosystem

The mangroves are breeding, nursery, feeding and hiding grounds for a certain group of finfish, crustacea and shellfish among the aquatic fauna and include those which enter from the sea as well as those which migrate down from the upstream stretches of rivers. An inventory of the ichthyofauna of the mangrove ecosystems has been prepared as part of a NATP project to assess the biodiversity

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Not AvailableList of commonly observed reptiles in mangroves are givenNot Availabl

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Not AvailableList of commonly observed reptiles in mangroves are givenNot Availabl