Port Blair, June 12: Scientists are of the view that many of the lesser-known marine animals in the world including those in India are having immense medicinal and commercial values. Dr C.Raghunathan, Scientist-in-Charge of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) in Port Blair in his address on the second day of the national seminar on lesser known marine animals of India being held in its premises as part of the ZSI’s centenary year celebrations told the audience that many of the hydrozoa group of animals have anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. Though pharmaceutical companies are showing very keen interest on them, many species of hydrozoa species are yet to be fully studied. World over, only 3536 species of hydrozoa have been identified including 164 in India so far. Even those that have been discovered are not fully decoded, he pointed out.
There are certain sea animals like Cnidaria schyphozoa, that can be useful in prediction of monsoon as they can sense monsoon currents well in advance and migrate en masse to the coastal areas to avoid getting washed away in the current. Therefore one can predict the arrival of monsoon about a fortnight in advance if mass migration of this particular type of marine species is observed, he added. This type of sea animal is also not yet fully studied. Out of the 186 types of scyphozoa, 35 have been discovered in Indian waters.
Dr Raghunathan said that the research held in Andaman and Nicobar on sea anemones have established the fact that they can live not only in the seas of temperate regions but also in tropical seas. The earlier view on them has been that sea anemones could be found only in temperate zones. 27 species of sea anemones have been identified in the Andaman region out of the 78 species known nationwide. Worldwide, there are 1107 species of sea anemones known so far.
Sponges that are commonly seen in the sea are also not yet studied extensively. A few of the sponge species have the peculiar ability to absorb 35 times more water than their own weight. Therefore they were excessively exploited and to keep them safe from the threat of extinction, gathering of them is now prohibited. One particular type called calcarean sponges have the capacity to serve as water filters as well.
World over, 1,40,139 species of marine animals are identified but their characteristics are not yet fully known. 1358 such species have been discovered in Indian waters. Young scientists could devote their time in studying these lesser known sea creatures, he suggested. He clarified that as far as sea animals are concerned, one cannot say any species as endemic to any particular region because they are migratory in nature due to their own intrinsic character and also because of the ocean currents.
A veteran zoologist from the Annamalai University, Dr S.Antony Fernando said gorgonids type of sea animals have been used traditionally by the people for a long time as pain killers, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory medicines. Latest researches have revealed that the sea plants have different varieties of chemical compounds that have huge medicinal values. Pharmaceutical companies are therefore showing very keen interest on studying them so that newer medical compounds can be extracted from them.
Dr Benjamin Franklin, scientist from the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Port Blair in his presentation said 6 new medicines drawn from marine animal sources have been approved for commercial use by the FDA of the US since 2004 after extensive clinical field trial. Thousands of more medicinal compounds from marine sources are undergoing field trial all over the world including in India, he informed. Some of the highly poisonous cone shells also prove to be potential sources of medicines for various diseases including neurodegenerative disorders, on which research is going on. Normally, development of a medicine from a marine source takes ten long years from research labs to field trials to commercial use.
