Two New Species of Plant Parasitic Nematodes Associated with Banana Plantations from West Bengal, India

Two new species of phytophagous nematodes belonging to order Tylenchida are described and illustrated. The proposed new species Hirschmanniella mannai n. sp. and Heikotylenchus medinipurensis n. sp. were collected from banana plantations of Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, India. Hirschmanniella mannai comes close to H. gracilis (De Man, 1880) Luc & Goodey, 1%3 but differs from it significantly in the values of L, b, b' and O. Besides, the stylet length, the location of excretory pore and the length of spicule are also different. Helicolyknchus medinipurensis resembles with H. tunisiensis Siddiqi, 1963 and H. belli Sher, 1966 by the truncate lip region, total body length and tail shape but shows marked differences from H. tunisiensis in the values of a, b, c and O and from H. belli in the values of a, b', c, c', m and O. Besides, stylet length, shape of stylet knob and location of phasmid in the profX)sed species also differ from both the closely related species.