First Record of Five Scleractinians Corals to Indian Water from Andaman and Nicobar Islands

The pristine islands of Andaman & Nicobar groups are well known for its biological features in terms of faunal and floral diversity coupled with several ecosystems which made these areas a natural heritage for the world community. The extensive favorable habitat with a continental shelf helped the coral community to develop for the construction of reef. Five species of scleractinians such as Pavona frondifera (Lamarck, 1816) belongs to Agariciidae family, Platygyra yaeyamaensis Eguchi and Shirai, 1977 and Montastrea magnistellata Chevalier, 1971 belong to Faviidae family whereas Goniopora palmensis Veron & Pichon, 1982 and Goniopora tenella (Quelch, 1886) under Poritidae family were recorded for the first time in Indian water from Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The present paper dealt with the findings of newly recorded five species of scleractinian corals along their morphological features and the existing distributional ranges with the present one.