CONTEXT:

• Bathynellaceans are minute crustaceans (crab family) and they live in the porous spaces of sediments along the waterways. Not more than 0.5-mm long, they are barely visible to the naked eye.
• Only eight species of these crustacean in seven genera were known in India till the end of 20th century.

BACKGROUND:

• Regular surveys initiated in the country since 2000, especially in certain pockets of coastal deltaic belt of the rivers Krishna and Godavari in Andhra Pradesh and South Eastern India, have so far yielded 90 new crustacean taxa.
• Of these 74 new species have been formally described. They include 34 Copepoda, 31 Bathynellacea, 6 Amphipoda, 2 Isopoda and one Ostracoda species.
• 13 of the 31 Bathynellid species were endangered by indiscriminate sand mining in the State.