The present paper deals with the identification and diversity of marine nematodes all over the Tamil Nadu Coast. A total of 33 species of nematodes belonging to 30 genera and 19 families have been identified and registered. Twelve stations were chosen for the present study from the entire coast of Tamil Nadu (Chennai to Kanyakumari). Nematodes were the most abundant group of meiofauna at all the sampling sites. The number of species per station ranged from 11 to 32. Rao and his co-workers (1968-1969) have reported a large number of species of nematodes from Indian Coasts, mostly new records. Six species and one genus of free-living marine nematodes belonging to 2 orders and 7 families were recorded for the first time from Indian waters from intertidal sediments of Pichavaran mangrove of Southeast Coast of India (Chinnadurai and Fernando, 2007).
1. Introduction
2. Marine free-living nematodes from India and Tamil Nadu
3. Description of the South area
4. Materials and method
5. Free-living marine nematodes
6. The cephalic and stome region with there sense organs
7. Systematics and species description
8. Results
9. Summary
10. Acknowledgements
11. References