Macrobrachium Abrahami, a new freshwater shrimp, has been discovered in Vamanapuram river. This new species has been identified by P Madhusoodanan Pillai, Registrar and Dean of faculty of Central Agriculture University; V Unnikrishnan, teacher of Vembayam Konchira Government School and U Suresh Kumar of Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology.
The international science journal ‘Zootaxa’ from Auckland published the morphology and DNA bar code of the new species along with phylogeny. Gene sequences of the new species has been submitted to the gene bank of National Centre for Biotechnology Information for the reference of international scientific community.
“Even though the new species has morphological resemblances with M scabriculum and M lanatum, it shows more genetic similarity to M prabhakarani, which was reported last year. Genomic investigation and maximum likelihood tree reveal that M scabriculum, M prabhakarani and M abrahami evolved from a common ancestor,” Unnikrishnan said. M abrahami is named in honour of Thomas Abraham, former head of Dept of Zoology, St Thomas College, Kozhencherry.