Drupella cornus Röding, 1798

Marimuthu, N. & Tripathy, Basudev, 2018, First report of Drupella cornus Röding, 1798 (Gastropoda: Muricidae), a biological indicator of coral reef habitat of Lakshadweep Archipelago, India, Records of the Zoological Survey of India 118 (1), pp. 97-99 : 98

Drupella cornus Röding, 1798

1832. Purpura elata Blainville, Nouvelles Annales du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. 1: 189-263.

1929. Drupa spectrum Reeve, Société d’Editions géographiques, maritimes et coloniales: Paris. 321-636, plates IV-VII pp.

1958. Sistrum elatum Blainville, A natural history of Inhaca Island, Mozambique. 163 pp.

1961. Morula elata Blainville, Tanganyika Notes and Records 56.

1997. Thais cornus Röding, A guide to the seashores of Eastern Africa and the Western Indian Ocean islands. 448 pp.

Materials examined: Drupella cornus is a solid shell with the series of rows of spines and the surface of the shell partially occupied by coralline algae. During the benthic reef monitoring in connection with the health of the reef ecosystem under Tourism Capacity Building project (conducted by NCSCM, Chennai during the month of January 2016), Nine exs. of Corallivorous snail collected by SCUBA diving at a depth of 10m from the branching portion of the coral Pocillopora verrucosa (Ellis and Solander, 1786) at Minicoy Island , Lakshadweep (N 08° 18’ 28.47” E 73° 01’ 05.98”) on 21.01.2016. The estimated opening height, opening width and large diameter of a single specimen among nine exs. as 7543.35µm, 3293.65 µm and 11025.75 µm respectively. The collected specimens were registered (No. M-29888/7) at Mollusca Section of Zoological Survey of India ( ZSI), Kolkata, India and deposited in the National Zoological Collections of ZSI .

Distribution: Drupella cornus Röding, 1798 were reported from Australian coast to East African coast ( Wilkinson, 2008; Houart, 2009; Cumming, 2009). In Indian waters, Raj et al., (2014) reported this organism up to generic level at Van Island, Gulf of Mannar.

Remarks: The information on the outbreak of this biological indicator has been reported at Red sea( Antonius and Riegl, 1997; Wilkinson, 2008; Mohamed et al., 2012; Al-Sofyani et al., 2014) which is a neighbouring marine realm. In order to find out the travel path of this biological indicator, the study on genetic similarity of the species between these environmental regions is need of the hour. There are no historical records of Drupella cornus from coral reef ecosystem in India and it was reported only in 2014 ( Raj et al., 2014) at Vaan Island up to Genus level. Raj et al. (2014) reported about the density of drupellid snails on Montipora digitata , but the report lacks on the description of the observed corallivorous organism at Gulf of Mannar. Therefore the occurrence of this species in the reef ecosystem need a proper verification, as well as molecular phylogeny of this species, will suggest the natural niche and its movement from neighbouring marine environment in due course of time. Also, rigorous data collection on environmental parameters may bring some significant fact about evolving this species and changes if any in their biology and behaviour including feeding pattern and food preference.