Saint Martin's
I have read with great interest the article on "Saving the coral biodiversity of St. Martin's Island." Congratulations to the author, Dr. Md. M. Maruf Hossain. I should like to make my own contribution to our knowledge of the fauna of the island, collected on a one-week scientific expedition to the island led by the late Professor M.I. Choudhury of Dhaka College in 1957. I made a collection of marine nematodes, two of which were new to science: Theristus sanctimarteni Timm 1958 and Monhystrella marina Timm 1964 (the only marine species of the genus).
Nematodes exist in enormous numbers on the floor of all the oceans of the world. Many of them are bactiverous and therefore play an important role in the natural elimination of decaying vegetable and sewage waste materials, which has become a problem on St. Martin's Island.
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