A Study on the Zoogeography of Indian Penaeidae

From the distributional point of view of Penaeid prawn, Indian region in the present study is divided into three main sub-regions viz., East Coast, West Coast including Laccadive-Minicoy Islands and Andaman Islands. Present study also records existence of 79 species in the coastalwater of India. Out of 79 species 9 are endemic, 24 are common in east coast, west coast and Andaman Islands; 16 species are restricted to East coast, 13 are restricted to west coast, 2 are restricted to Laccadiv Islands, 3 species are restricted to Andaman Islands only. Global Analysis shows that most species are distributed within Indo-West Pacific region and only 6 species are distributed up to east Atlantic region. A statistical analysis based on the distribution of prawn shows more moderate similarity between east coast and west coast in India and strong similarity between sub-region 1 and 4 of Indo-West Pacific indicates that the Indian species are more common with Indonesian and Indo-Malaysian than East African species.