Coastal Eutrophication as a Cause of Elimination of Lugworms: First Record of Arenicola marina (Linnaeus, 1758) from Coastal Areas of Bay of Bengal at Chandipur, Odisha, India

Arenicola marina (Linnaeus, 1758), a marine polychaete worm of the phylum Annelida is rarely seen but its coiled castings are a familiar sight on a beach at low tide of both northern and southern hemisphere. The genus Arenicola enjoys a wide distribution and in the tropical and sub-tropical regions A. cristata is the dominant species. Apart from a few records on the beaches of Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea the genus has not been known so far from any other part of India. In a study on the sandy as well as mudflats of Bay of Bengal at Chandipur in Odisha, India, we observed quite a big numbers of castings of Arenicola during the end of December, 2015 and accidentally found a full grown individual at the sandy beach. From that point of view it is the first report of its kind from this part of the globe, especially from Bay of Bengal, India.