A Guide to Penaeid and Solenocerid Prawn of Digha, West Bengal, India

Indian subcontinent has a long coastline of 6900 km includes nine maritime states along with vast continental shelf and two peninsular zone namely Andaman & Nicober and Lacca & Minicoy, rich in fishery wealth. The author is actively engaged in prawn taxonomy and fishery of Indian coastal region more than two decades. This book is the product of deep and active interest in prawn taxonomy. Present study reveals that the total of 22 species under 10 genera of superfamily Penaeoidae Rafinesque - Schmaltz, 1815 have been recorded from Digha coast, West Bengal, east coast of India. Distributional ranges of the species found in Digha coast shows that majority of the species are pantropical in distribution. Penaeid taxonomy of West Bengal region is very scattered, there is no comprehensive work on the group for the present study area. So, present work is an attempt to make an up to date comprehensive systematic document on Penaeid prawn of West Bengal Coast. This book includes a simplified key for identification of species, their synonyms, type locality, diagnosis and distribution of both India and elsewhere. Each species are represented by a photograph.