Abstract
The Andaman and Nicobar group of islands (11.7401°N, 92.6586°E) are surrounded by the Bay of Bengal to the west and Andaman Sea to the east. The species reported in this paper belongs to the superfamily Gonodactyloidea, which are generally “smashers”, i.e. the dactylus of their raptorial appendage is greatly inflated at the base and used to break open hard-bodied prey (Ahyong 1997). Most smashers live in rock and coral cavities and have a heavily armoured telson for defensive and offensive purposes (Caldwell & Dingle 1975). Studies on the family Gonodactylidae from these islands have been limited and few have been reported so far (Jayabarathi et al. 2013; Kumaralingam & Raghunathan 2016; Kumaralingam et al. 2017). Recent field studies in the Andaman Islands collected a specimen of the Gonodactylus smithii, reported herein.
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