New Distributional Record Of The Indian Species Of The Genus Testudinella Bory De Saint-Vincent, 1822 (Rotifera: Flosculariacea: Testudinellidae) From The Western Ghats Of Tamil Nadu, India.

Abstract

The present paper reports the new distributional record of a littoral -periphytic rotifer species of the family Testudinellidae Harring, 1913 from the state of Tamil Nadu as well as to the Western Ghats. The species Testudinella greeni Koste, 1981 is an interesting Palaeotropical rotifer element which is reported earlier from North East India only. From the state of Tamil Nadu four species of the genus Testudinella viz. Testudinella parva (Ternetz, 1892), Testudinella incisa, Testudinella mucronata (Gosse, 1886) and Testudinella patina (Hermann, 1783) were earlier reported. The present study also provided brief descriptions of this species, including images taken with 80i Nikon microscope, illustrated and comments are made on their distribution.