15-Sep-2021: Discovery of New Species of Hybodont Shark From Jurassic of Jaisalmer, Rajasthan
In a rare discovery, teeth of new species of hybodont shark of Jurassic age have been reported for the first time from Jaisalmer by a team of officers comprising Krishna Kumar, Pragya Pandey, Triparna Ghosh and Debasish Bhattacharya from the Geological Survey of India (GSI), Western Region, Jaipur. This finding has been published in Historical Biology, a Journal of Palaeontology of International repute, in its August, 2021, 4th issue. Prof. Dr. Sunil Bajpai, Head of the Department, Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, who is a co-author of this publication, played a significant role in the identification and documentation of this important discovery.
According to Shri Krishna Kumar, Senior Geologist, Palaeontology division, Western Region, Hybodont sharks have been reported for the first time from the Jurassic rocks (approximately, between 160 and 168 million-years-old) of the Jaisalmer region of Rajasthan. Hybodonts, an extinct group of sharks, was a dominant group of fishes in both marine and fluvial environments during the Triassic and early Jurassic time. However, hybodont sharks started to decline in marine environments from the Middle Jurassic onwards until they formed a relatively minor component of open-marine shark assemblages. Hybodonts finally became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous time 65 million years ago.
Significantly, the newly discovered crushing teeth from Jaisalmer represent a new species named by the research team as Strophodusjaisalmerensis. The genus Strophodus has been identified for the first time from the Indian subcontinent and is only the third such record from Asia, the other two being from Japan and Thailand. The new species has recently been included in the Shark references.com, an international platform operating in association with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Species Survival Commission (SSC), and Germany.
This discovery marks an important milestone in the study of Jurassic vertebrate fossils in the Jaisalmer region of Rajasthan, and it opens a new window for further research in the domain of vertebrate fossils.
The Geological Survey of India (GSI) was set up in 1851 primarily to find coal deposits for the Railways. Over the years, GSI has not only grown into a repository of geo-science information required in various fields in the country but has also attained the status of a geo-scientific organisation of international repute. Its main functions relate to creating and updating of national geoscientific information and mineral resource assessment. These objectives are achieved through ground surveys, air-borne and marine surveys, mineral prospecting and investigations, multi-disciplinary geoscientific, geo-technical, geo-environmental and natural hazards studies, glaciology, seism tectonic study, and carrying out fundamental research.
GSI’s core competence in survey and mapping is continuously enhanced through accretion, management, co-ordination and utilization of spatial databases (including those acquired through remote sensing). GSI uses latest computer-based technologies for dissemination of geoscientific information and spatial data, through cooperation and collaboration with other stakeholders in the Geo-informatics sector.
Headquartered in Kolkata, GSI an attached office to the Ministry of Mines has regional offices in Lucknow, Jaipur, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Shillong. GSI also has unit offices in almost all States of the country.
23-Nov-2018: New species of shark identified in Indian Ocean
A new species of a deep sea shark has been found in the northern Indian Ocean, the first such discovery in India since 2011 when the Mangalore hound-shark was identified. The Pygmy false catshark is currently known only from deep waters (200-1000m depth) and has a length of about 65cm. It is dark brown without any prominent patterns.
The new species was found off the southwestern coast of India and north of Sri Lanka. Its scientific name is Planonasus indicus – from ‘planus’ meaning flat and ‘nasus’ meaning nose. There is only one other species from this genus – the Dwarf false catshark (planonasus parini).
There is currently a dearth of information and research related to marine biology across the Indian coastline. Currently, one section of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and research wings of certain universities have dedicated programs on marine biodiversity and taxonomy, which identify new species from time to time.
The new species was first observed on April 26, 2008, when it was caught in fishing nets in Kochi, Kerala. On March 15, 2018, a second specimen was caught off the coast of Trincomalee, in Sri Lanka.
The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute(CMFRI) has come up with a National Plan of Action (NPOA) in 2015 that includes extensive monitoring, increasing species identification capacity and species wise fishery catch recording.
10-Dec-2020: A tough novel species of Muraingrass identified by scientists in the plateaus of Western Ghats of Goa
A new species of Indian Muraingrasses known for their ecological and economic importance, such as fodder, have been spotted by scientists in Goa in the Western Ghats, one of the four global biodiversity hotspots of India. The species has adapted to survive harsh conditions, low nutrient availability, and blossoms every monsoon.
Globally 85 species are known from Ischaemum, of which 61 species are exclusively found in India. The Western Ghats have 40 species with the highest concentration of the genus.
Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, has been exploring the biodiversity of the Western Ghats for last few decades.
A team led by Dr. Mandar Datar and Dr. Ritesh Kumar Choudhary from ARI has been working on relationships among different groups of plants and their evolutionary development (plant taxonomy and phylogeny) of Indian Muraingrasses (Genus Ischaemum) to document the diversity and report novel species. The team discovered a novel species named Ischaemumjanarthanamii from plateaus of Western Ghats of Goa, and a research paper describing this species was published recently in Annales Botanici Fennici, a Finland based journal.
During their explorations on lateritic outcrops (habitats where portions of freely exposed bedrocks protrude above the soil level due to natural reasons) of Goa, the ARI team collected an interesting specimen of the species. Careful observations and critical morphological studies identified the species as a novel one. The species was named Ischaemumjanarthanamiiin honour of Prof. M. K. Janarthanam, Professor of Botany, Goa University, for his contribution to the Indian grass taxonomy and documentation of the floristic diversity of Goa state.
The first collection of this new species was made in the 2017 monsoon. The population was kept under observation for the next two years to confirm the consistency of its characters. Morphological and molecular data of the species were used to confirm the novelty of the species.
Ischaemumjanarthanamii grows on low altitude lateritic plateaus in the outskirts of Bhagwan Mahavir National Park, Goa. The vegetation is exposed to extreme climatic conditions like desiccation in drier months and soils with low nutrient availability. However, withstanding these, the species has adapted to survive harsh conditions and blossom every monsoon.
4-Oct-2020: Scientists from Agharkar Research Institute, Pune discover two new species of pipeworts from the Western Ghats of Maharashtra & Karnataka
Two new species of a plant group known for their varied medicinal properties have been discovered in the Western Ghats – one of the thirty-five hot-spots of biological diversity in the world.
The plant group known as pipeworts (Eriocaulon), which completes their life cycle within a small period during monsoon, exhibits great diversity in the Western Ghats, having around 111 species in India.
Most of these are reported from the Western Ghats and Eastern Himalayas, and around 70% of them are endemic to the country. One species, Eriocaulon cinereum, is well known for its anti-cancerous, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and astringent properties. E. quinquangulare is used against liver diseases. E. madayiparense is an anti-bacterial from Kerala. The medicinal properties of the newly discovered species are yet to be explored.
Scientists from Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, have recently found two new species of pipeworts in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
They found the new species while exploring the biodiversity of the Western Ghats. They wanted to trace the evolutionary history of the genus Eriocaulon and made extensive efforts to collect as many species as possible from India, especially from the Western Ghats.
“While critically examining our collection, we came across two accessions, which showed different floral characters than earlier known species. Hence, we studied morphology and its DNA to confirm the novelty,” said Dr. Ritesh Kumar Choudhary, the lead author of the study.
"Identification of the species belonging to Eriocaulon is very difficult as they all look similar, which is why the genus is often referred to as 'Taxonomist’s nightmare'. Its tiny flowers and seeds make it difficult to distinguish between different species," Dr. Choudhary pointed out. Their study was published in the journals 'Phytotaxa' and ‘Annales Botanici Fennici’.
The one reported from Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra was named as Eriocaulon parvicephalum (due to its minute inflorescence size), and the other reported from Kumta, Karnataka was named as Eriocaulon karaavalense (named after Karaavali = Coastal Karnataka region).
“Future studies will focus on elucidating the evolutionary history of the genus in India. A thorough investigation of the phylogenetic relationship between all Indian species would also help in prioritizing the conservation of threatened species in India. We are also trying to develop DNA barcodes, which will enable us to identify the species with just a portion of the leaf,” said Dr. Choudhary's Ph.D. student Ashwini Darshetkar.