| Thalassina anomala | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Crustacea |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Decapoda |
| Suborder: | Pleocyemata |
| Family: | Thalassinidae |
| Genus: | Thalassina |
| Species: | T. anomala |
| Binomial name | |
| Thalassina anomala | |
| Synonyms [2] | |
| |
Thalassina anomala, known as the scorpion mud lobster, is a species of crustacean in the family Thalassinidae .
Thalassina anomala are typically 16–20 centimetres (6.3–7.9 in) in length, with records of specimens up to 30 centimetres (12 in) long. [3] Its body is yellow to reddish-brown.
T. anomala is found in the Indo-West Pacific region. [3] It is the most common decapod crustacean in the Sundarbans in India and Bangladesh, though it is often overlooked in traditional sampling efforts. [4]
Its habitat includes littoral and supralittoral zones such as those in mangroves and estuaries. [3] Excavated mud from their nighttime burrowing activities can form hills that reach heights of 3 metres (9.8 ft). [5] The burrows are estimated at 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) in depth. In the monsoon season, its muddy nest becomes saturated with water and submerges, and the lobster is exposed, allowing it to be easily caught. [6]
T. anomala is considered of high importance ecologically, as its nightly burrowing pushes deep soil to the surface, while also helping the import of aerated tidal water up to 2.5 meters deep. [7] The mud mounds provide habitat for other animals including Odontomachus malignus (an ant), termites, Episesarma singaporense (tree-climbing crab), Wolffogebia phuketensis (mangrove mud shrimp), Acrochordus granulatus (file snake), and plants such as the tree Excoecaria agallochoa and ferns. [5]
The Andaman Sea is a marginal sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean bounded by the coastlines of Myanmar and Thailand along the Gulf of Martaban and west side of the Malay Peninsula, and separated from the Bay of Bengal to its west by the Andaman Islands and the Nicobar Islands. Its southern end is at Breueh Island just north of Sumatra, with the Strait of Malacca further southeast.
Mantis shrimp are carnivorous marine crustaceans of the order Stomatopoda. Stomatopods branched off from other members of the class Malacostraca around 340 million years ago. Mantis shrimp typically grow to around 10 cm (3.9 in) in length, while a few can reach up to 38 cm (15 in). A mantis shrimp's carapace covers only the rear part of the head and the first four segments of the thorax. Varieties range in colour from shades of brown to vivid colours, with more than 450 species of mantis shrimp known. They are among the most important predators in many shallow, tropical and subtropical marine habitats. However, despite being common, they are poorly understood, as many species spend most of their lives sheltering in burrows and holes.
Mangrove crabs are crabs that live in and around mangroves. They belong to many different species and families and have been shown to be ecologically significant by burying and consuming leaf litter. Mangrove crabs have a variety of phylogenies because mangrove crab is a umbrella term that encompasses many species of crabs. Two of the most common families are sesarmid and fiddler crabs. They are omnivorous and are predated on by a variety of mammals and fish. They are distributed widely throughout the globe on coasts where mangroves are located. Mangrove crabs have wide variety of ecological and biogeochemical impacts due to the biofilms that live in symbiosis with them as well as their burrowing habits. Like many other crustaceans, they are also a human food source and have been impacted by humans as well as climate change.
Nephrops norvegicus, known variously as the Norway lobster, Dublin Bay prawn, shlobster (shrimp-lobster), langoustine or scampi, is a slim, coral colored lobster that grows up to 25 cm (10 in) long, and is "the most important commercial crustacean in Europe". It is now the only extant species in the genus Nephrops, after several other species were moved to the closely related genus Metanephrops. It lives in the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean, and parts of the Mediterranean Sea, but is absent from the Baltic Sea and Black Sea. Adults emerge from their burrows at night to feed on worms and fish.
Sundarbans is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. Sundarban Reserve Forest (SRF) of Bangladesh is the largest mangrove forest in the world. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh's division of Khulna to the Hooghly River in India's state of West Bengal. It comprises closed and open mangrove forests, land used for agricultural purpose, mudflats and barren land, and is intersected by multiple tidal streams and channels. Sundarbans is home to the world's largest area of mangrove forests. Four protected areas in the Sundarbans are enlisted as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, viz. Sundarbans West (Bangladesh), Sundarbans South (Bangladesh), Sundarbans East (Bangladesh) and Sundarbans National Park (India).
Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangroves cannot withstand freezing temperatures. There are about 80 different species of mangroves, all of which grow in areas with low-oxygen soil, where slow-moving waters allow fine sediments to accumulate.
Axiidea is an infraorder of decapod crustaceans. They are colloquially known as mud shrimp, ghost shrimp, or burrowing shrimp; however, these decapods are only distantly related to true shrimp. Axiidea and Gebiidea are divergent infraoders of the former infraorder Thalassinidea. These infraorders have converged ecologically and morphologically as burrowing forms. Based on molecular evidence as of 2009, it is now widely believed that these two infraorders represent two distinct lineages separate from one another. Since this is a recent change, much of the literature and research surrounding these infraorders still refers to the Axiidea and Gebiidea in combination as "thalassinidean" for the sake of clarity and reference. This division based on molecular evidence is consistent with the groupings proposed by Robert Gurney in 1938 based on larval developmental stages.
Gilvossius tyrrhenus is a species of thalassinidean crustacean which grows to a length of 70 mm (2.8 in). It lives in burrows in shallow sandy parts of the sea-bed in the Mediterranean Sea and northern Atlantic Ocean. It is the most common thalassinidean in the Mediterranean, and has been used as bait by fishermen for at least 200 years.
Thalassina is a genus of mud lobsters found in the mangrove swamps of the Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean. Its nocturnal burrowing is important for the recycling of nutrients in the mangrove ecosystem, although it is sometimes considered a pest of fish and prawn farms.
Upogebia deltaura is a species of mud lobster from the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
Coastal fish, also called inshore fish or neritic fish, inhabit the sea between the shoreline and the edge of the continental shelf. Since the continental shelf is usually less than 200 metres (660 ft) deep, it follows that pelagic coastal fish are generally epipelagic fish, inhabiting the sunlit epipelagic zone. Coastal fish can be contrasted with oceanic fish or offshore fish, which inhabit the deep seas beyond the continental shelves.
The rex sole is a flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae. Locally, it may also be known as a witch or threadfin sole. It is a demersal fish that lives in temperate waters on sand or mud bottoms at depths of up to 900 metres (3,000 ft), though it is most commonly found between 61 and 500 metres. Its native habitat is the northern Pacific, from Baja California in Mexico up the coasts of the United States, British Columbia and Alaska, across the Bering Sea to the coast of Russia and the Sea of Japan. It is slow-growing, reaching up to 60 centimetres (24 in) in length, and it can weigh up to 2.0 kilograms (4.4 lb). Maximum reported lifespan is 24 years.
Lepidophthalmus turneranus, the Cameroon ghost shrimp, is a species of "ghost shrimp" or "mud lobster" that lives off the coast of West Africa. It occasionally erupts into dense swarms, one of which resulted in the naming of the country Cameroon.
Sundarbans East Wildlife Sanctuary, a protected forest in Bangladesh, extends over an area of 31,227 ha. of mangrove forest. It was established in 1977 under the Bangladesh Wildlife (Preservation) (Amendment) Act, 1974, having previously been a forest reserve. It is the most fertile of the three, non-adjoining wildlife sanctuaries established in the Sundarbans at that time, the others being the Sundarbans West Wildlife Sanctuary and the Sundarbans South Wildlife Sanctuary. The dominant mangrove species is "sundri" from which the Sundarbans region gets its name.
Heritiera fomes is a species of mangrove tree in the family Malvaceae. Its common names include sunder, sundri, jekanazo and pinlekanazo. It is the dominant mangrove tree species of the Sundarbans of Bangladesh and India, and comprises about 70% of the trees in the area. H. fomes is a major timber-producing tree. It is threatened by over-harvesting, water diversions in the Ganges Basin, fluctuations in salinity due to upstream and coastal development and top dying disease. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed it as being "endangered".
Shrimp are crustaceans with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are referred to as "shrimp".
Prawn is a common name for small aquatic crustaceans with an exoskeleton and ten legs, some of which are edible.
Crustaceans belong to the subphylum Crustacea, and form a large, diverse group of arthropods including decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can be treated as a subphylum under the clade Mandibulata. It is now well accepted that the hexapods emerged deep in the Crustacean group, with the completed group referred to as Pancrustacea. Some crustaceans are more closely related to insects and the other hexapods than they are to certain other crustaceans.
The violet vinegar crab is a swimming crab species in the genus Episesarma. Distributed all over marine and brackish waters of Indo-West Pacific regions. It is harvested by many local fishermen for rich proteinaceous food.
Upogebia pugettensis, also known as the blue mud shrimp, is a species of mud lobster from the West Coast of North America.