In Indian seas, 649 species are reported so far. Bell (1887) for the first time listed the echinoderms from the Andaman Islands. Earlier there were only stray reports of occurrence of individual species of these Islands. From this time onwards many workers reported echinoderms from these Islands and added several species to the echinoderm fauna. James (1983) while dealing with sea cucumber and sea urchin resources of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands gave a list of echinoderms known from these Islands.
In addition, there have been several revisionary works effecting changes in the nomenclature and status of several taxa. Sastry (2005) attempted to compile all the available published literature on echinoderms of Andaman and Nicobar Islands as well as the materials in the National Zoological Collection of Zoological Survey of India at Kolkata and Port Blair. It is resulted with a total of 425 species of echinoderms from these Islands.
| Class
| No. of Species
Andaman
| No. of species
Nicobar
| No. of species
A & N Islands
| Total
|
| Crinoidea
| 35
| 7
| 8
| 50
|
| Asteroidea
| 78
| 7
| 19
| 104
|
| Ophiuroidea
| 70
| 9
| 24
| 103
|
| Echinoidea
| 56
| 4
| 20
| 80
|
| Holothuroidea
| 56
| 4
| 28
| 88
|
| Total
| 295
| 31
| 99
| 425
|
