Record of inarticulate Brachiopoda, Lingula sp. from mangrove areas in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra and its unusual commercial exploitation

Abstract

The Brachiopoda or ‘lamp shells’ belong to an ancient phylum of filter feeding marine worms. They live inside a pair of shells much like the bivalve; however, brachiopods differ from bivalves in many ways. Their shells have a definite dorsal and ventral (upper and lower) half, while bivalves, which are molluscs, have left and right halves to their shells. The brachiopods are so different internally that they have been grouped under separate phylum. Lingula is a genus of brachiopods with about eleven species within the family lingulidae.