Elaiyaraja C, Rajasekaran R and Sekar V.
The marine biodiversity of the southeast coast of India is rich and much of the world’s wealth of biodiversity is found in highly diverse coastal habitats. A present study was carried out on marine gastropod accessibility among Palk Bay region of Tamilnadu coastline to identify, quantify and assess the shell resources potential for development of a small-scale shell industry. A large collection of marine gastropod was made among the coastal line of Mallipattinam and Kottaipattinam found 61 species (25 families) of marine gastropods over a 12 months period from Aug- 2011 to July- 2012. A totally of 61 species belonging to 55 species of 40 genera were recorded at station 1 and 56 species belonging to 41 genera were identified at station 2. Most of the species were common in both landings centre with slight differences but some species like Turritella duplicate, Strombus canarium, Cyprae onyxadusta, Marginella angustata, and Harpa major were available in station 1 not available in station 2. The present study revealed that the occurrence of marine gastropods species along the Palk Bay region of Tamilnadu coastline
