NEW DELHI: After sighting of the rare bats, a new type of nearly blind albino crab has been discovered in the caves of Meghalaya by a group of scientists from Zoological Survey of India (ZSI).
The ZSI scientists, after preliminary inspection and discussions with international experts, claimed that it was a new species that was hitherto unknown to the world. This is the first cave-dwelling crab discovered in India.
A new species of bats was discovered in Meghalaya earlier this month.
“It is definitely a new species. This is the first cave crab from India. Its physical features are quite different from the crabs we see around or from other cave crabs discovered earlier in Asia,” said Santanu Mitra, a ZSI scientist who inspected the specimens.
The albino crabs were discovered by 29-year-old Parveen Farzana Absar, who is pursuing her masters in wildlife sciences from Aligarh Muslim University, on March 29. The researcher was inspecting various caves of East Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya over the past two months for her dissertation paper on cave biology.
Absar found them around 200 m from the mouth of the cave.
The discovery was brought to the notice of Illona J. Kharkongor, a ZSI scientist in Meghalaya specialising in cave biology, who got in touch with crab experts at the ZSI headquarters in Kolkata for more details.
The ZSI scientists claimed that the crab belongs to the Teretamon genus, the third species of the genus. While the first one was discovered from Myanmar several decades ago, the second one was discovered in Mizoram by Mitra in 2016. These two are, however, not cave-dwelling.
Unlike other crabs, which come in various colours like red, blue and olive green and sizes, these crabs are albino with small bodies measuring less than 2cm. While other crabs have well-developed claws often larger than their bodies, these cave crabs have short and slender legs with hairs on them.
“They are perfectly adapted to cave life and live in ‘dark zones’ where temperatures remain almost constant. Because there is no light in the caves, they have no colouring pigments and hence albino and blind,” said Mitra.
Blind albino cave crabs have been earlier reported from some Asian countries like China, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. Scientists, however, claimed that the Meghalaya crab is different.
“While this one has a large eye socket but a retina smaller than a poppy seed the former ones have smaller sockets. In others, the body is serrated (like a saw) on the sides and they do not have hairy legs.
“This has a smooth body with hairs on its legs. The other cave crabs had larger bodies, sometimes reaching up to even two inches, but this one has a much smaller body. Even the shape of the penis of the newly discovered one is different from its predecessors,” said Mitra.
The researcher is now preparing to publish her findings in some peer-reviewed journal. Scientists from ZSI said the latest discovery will also find a place on the list of Animal Discoveries, an annual publication of ZSI, as a new species not known to scientists till date.
There are around 8.7 million species of plants and animals live on the earth out of which only around 1.2 million have been discovered. More than 80 percent species are yet to be identified by scientists and around 97,000 animal species have been identified in India so far.
