Status and threat perceptions of the Indian horseshoe crabs along the Northeast Coast of Bay of Bengal, India

Abstract

The Indian subcontinent is surrounded by one of the oldest seas, the Bay of Bengal, at its eastern side extending over a total length of 2,090 km from the northern state of West Bengal to the southernmost tip of India and the Arabian Sea on the other side. On the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal lies Bangladesh, Myanmar and Andaman and Nicobar group of islands that surrounds Andaman Sea at its eastern side. The Bay of Bengal is unique in nature as several major river estuaries are found along its coastline, and it supports a vivid biodiversity and several unique ecosystems including mangroves, grassland, brackish water, etc. Among scores of biological resources, two horseshoe crab species Tachypleus gigas and Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda are quite prominent along the coasts of Bay of Bengal. As in other places, both these ecosystems and the biological resources including living fossils like horseshoe crabs are challenged with several threats. In the present chapter, threat perceptions to these two horseshoe crab species along the northeast coast of the Bay of Bengal with particular reference to the Gangetic Sundarban (Mangrove forest) delta are discussed. It was observed that the main threat to these two species is the destruction of their respective breeding habitat, particularly nesting zones constituting the intertidal sand for T. gigas and mangrovem associated mudfl ats in case of C. rotundicauda.