New records of cheilostome Bryozoa from the eastern coast of India encrusting on the exoskeleton of live horseshoe crabs of Indian Sundarbans

Bryozoans are common commensal on hard surfaces and cover slow-moving animals like molluscans, sea turtles, brachyuran crabs, and horseshoe crabs. A total of six species of bryozoans belonging to four genus under three families of order Cheilostomatida were recorded encrusting on the carapaces of horseshoe crabs collected from Indian Sundarbans along the east coast of India and two among them, viz., Biflustra savartii (Audouin, 1826) and Sinoflustra arabianensis (Menon & Nair, 1975) are reported for the first time. Additionally, Jellyella tuberculata (Bosc, 1802) is reported for the first time from West Bengal coastal waters, previously known only from the Odisha coast of India. Both male and female horseshoe crabs were found to have been encrusted with bryozoan mats, although adequately not known about the life stages of their encrustation.