A new species of Limnocnida (Limnomedusae, Coelenterata) from a freshwater aquarium in India

Abstract

We report the occurrence of a freshwater medusa from a laboratory aquarium in Ranchi, Bihar, India . The consistent emergence of these medussae coincided with sunny days after heavy and prolonged rainfall in the months of August to October . The material showed similarity with Limnocnide indica Annandale and L . nepalensis Dumont but differed in many respects, and is given the status of a distinct species, Limnocnida biharensis n .sp .

The freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbii Lankester, 1880 (Limnomedusa: Olindiidae) in Germany, with a brief note on its nomenclature

“…Although the jellyfish was considered to be from South-America, it was shown in the 1950s that the species originated from the Yangtsekiang River system, China (Kramp 1950). Of the limited number of freshwater jellyfish species, Craspedacusta species occur almost worldwide (Acker & Muscat 1976, Pennak 1956), however, the genus Limnocnida seems to dominate the waters of India (Ahmad et al 1987) and Africa, with the exception of South-Africa (Rayner 1988). Although multiple species of the genus Craspedacusta have been described, so far five species have been recognized (Boulenger & Flower 1928) (Fig.…”

Freshwater medusae Limnocnida indica Annandale, 1911 in the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, Dubare Reserve Forest and Shivanasamudram in Karnataka, India, with a commentary note on the exotic Craspedacusta sowerbii Lankester, 1880

“…Of these, four genera have been reported from India, Limnocnida, Craspedacusta, Mansariella, and Keralika. Freshwater medusae are severely understudied globally (Ahmad et al 1987;Dumont 1994) and lack conservation importance. For instance, more than 100 years after their discovery, none of the Limnomedusa are assessed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.…”

“…In India, Limnomedusae were first believed to have dispersed westward from the Bay of Bengal to the Western Ghats and then northward to the Himalaya (Rao 1931). Ahmad et al (1987), however, disagree, proposing that the dispersal of the Limnomedusae was in a southwardly direction starting from the Himalaya; evidenced by the presence of Mansariella lacustris which is endemic to an isolated lake in the Himalayan region (Malhotra et al 1976).…”

“…Two genera of Limnomedusae are of interest to this note, i.e., Limnocnida and Craspedacusta. The genus Limnocnida has three confirmed species in India, L. indica Annandale, 1911, believed to be endemic to the Western Ghats (Annandale 1911;Agharkar 1913;Ramakrishna et al 1950;Birsal 1994), L. nepalensis (Dumont, 1976) and L. biharensis (Ahmad et al, 1987), are both from northern India. Craspedacusta is a genus with three confirmed species spread across eastern Asia, of which only C. sowerbii has been reported from the Indian sub-continent.…”

“…Both species L. indica and C. sowerbii are closely related in morphology but can be distinguished in the field by the arrangement of the gonads on the manubrium (Darling 1935;Ahmad et al 1987). C. sowerbii have large 'pouch-like' gametogenic tissue that hang from the radial canals (Jankowski 2001;Oualid et al 2019) and in L. indica the gonads are arranged in a ring around the stomach (Ahmad et al 1987) (See Image 1). Further, Joshi & Tonapi (1965) suggest that C. sowerbii occur in August in India while the medusae of L. indica are reported in pre-monsoon between February and May (Agharkar 1913;Rao 1931;Joshi & Tonapi 1965;Birsal 1994).…”