On the occurrence of Athanas dorsalis (Stimpson)(Decapoda - Alpheidae) in the Gulf of Mannar

Sankarankutty, C (1962) On the occurrence of Athanas dorsalis (Stimpson)(Decapoda - Alpheidae) in the Gulf of Mannar. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India, 4 (2). pp. 167-171.

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Abstract

Banner (1960) in a revision,of the genus Athanas Leach has provided a key for the identification of the species belonging to this genus from the Indo-Pacific region. The genus Athanas, which was once separated from a closely related genus Arete Stimpson based on the number of segments of carpus in the second pereiopod (5 in Athanas aind 4 in Arete) and biunguiculate third pereiopod in Arete and uniunguiculate in Athanas, has already been merged together (Banner 1960) and Arete now stands as a synonym of Athanas. Of the 28 species so far known from the whole of the Indo-Pacific region, only 8 species are known to occur in Indian Ocean. Out of the above 8 species, only 1 species is on record from the coasts of Indian Peninsula (Kemp 1915). Except for A. orientalis Pearson and A. polymorphus Kemp, which appear to be endemic in distribution {A. orientalis was reported from Ceylon and A. polymorphus from Chilka Lake), the rest of the 6 species have all a very wide range of distribution at least from the east coast of Africa to Indonesia. This evidently indicates that alpheids as a whole is so far a little known group as far as Indian region is concerned and except for the exhaustive accounts by Coutiere (1903 & 1906), who made a thorough study of alpheids of the Laccadive and Maldive Archipelagos, there is practically no work dealing with this group of decapods.

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