Two New Species of Molluscs (Naticidae: Gastropoda) from India

Abstract

The genus Natica was established by Scopoli, 1777 with Nerita vitellus Linnaeus, 1758 and subsequent designation given by Anton (1839) as the type. Several authors worked on the genus Natica ( Sowerby, 1883, Reeve, 1885, Tryon 1886 and recently Cemohorsky, 1971,1972, ) which are distributed in the Indo-Pacific region. In India, Subba Rao and Dey (2000) listed 12 species of the genus Natica in their Catalogue of Marine Molluscs of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Subba Rao (2003) enumerated 15 species under this genus in Indian Sea Shell (Part-I) Polyplacophora and Gastropoda. Of 91 species under the genus Natica reported globally, 41 species are from Indo-Pacific region and 19 species have been listed from various parts of India. While studying the molluscs of the family Naticidae, the authors came across with two new species of Naticidae from India. The type specimens are deposited in the National Zoological Collections, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata.