BODY INDICES OF THE FRESH WATER SNAIL, THIARA LINEATA

The snail is economically important from ancient time and also harmful which serves as an intermediate host of various trematod parasites, which causes severe diseases to human being as well as domestic animals. The gastropod mollusc, Thiara lineata is a filter feeder at secondary level of fresh water ecosystem. The reproductive potential, resistance, survival abilities, feeding habits and most of the peculiarities are depending on the presence or absence of the body fluids, proportions of organs and organ index in the body of animal. Hence, it felt necessary to study alteration in the organ indices, reproductive index, shell index and water percentage throughout pre-reproductive, reproductive and post-reproductive period in the body of snail, T. lineata. The healthy, active and same sized mature adult animals were considered for an experiment. Whole body and different parts of the body, viz., brain, gonad, hepatopancreas, accessory gland, foot, reproductive tract, visceral organs (rest of the body) were estimated. The results were statistically analyzed and were found to be significant.