Marine Sponges of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India

The peninsular and insular coastlines of the Indian subcontinent provide a veritable habitat for a large number of sponges: The 6090 km coastline (CMFRI, 1978) provides varied topographic conditions for the survival and reproduction of the sponge species.  A review of literature indicates paucity of taxonomic information of the sponges of the Indian coastline. …Most of the studies done on the marine sponges of India are from the Southern India, Lakshadweep and Minicoy Islands, North West India from Gulf of Kutch and Cambay.  Taxonomic information on the sponges of Andaman and Nicobar Islands is far from complete and prompted the necessity of this work.  The fauna of Andaman and Nicobar Island is remarkable for its high biological diversity and affinities to Indo-Malayan and Indo-Chinese regions (Smith, 1930).  Tikadar, Daniel and Subba Rao (1986) gave a comprehensive list of sea shore fauna of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.  This list comprises of sponges belonging to 1 Species of Calcarea, 16 species of Hexactinellida and 63 species of Demospongiae.