157 DOI : 10.33451/florafauna.v26i1pp157-163 FLORA AND FAUNA ISSN 2456 - 9364 (Online) 2020 Vol. 26 No. 1 PP 157-163 ISSN 0971 - 6920 (Print) Impact of colchicine on morphology of different developmental stages of Lymnaea stagnalis Payal Mahobiya Department of Zoology Dr. Harisingh Gour University, SAGAR M.P. Email. 1607payal@gmail.com Received : 18.03.2020; Accepted : 22.04.2020 ABSTRACT The molluscicidal effect of colchicine was evaluated against various stages of the freshwater snail Lymnaea stagnalis, immature, young mature and adults. Calculated values of lethal concentrations (LC 50 and LC 100 ) showed colchicine as toxic against eggs, immature and adults. Results revealed that colchicine could be used to control harmful snails, as it significantly controls reproduction of these snails. The colchicine reduces fecundity, prolongs hatchability period and reduces survival of the newly hatched snails in a snail population, when exposed to a concentration lower than LC 50 . So, this investigation was made to know more about the intoxication of alkaloids of colchicines on the mortality and survivality of hatched young snail of pest snail. Figures : 02 References : 12 Tables : 02 KEY WORDS : Colchicine, Developmental stages, Lethal concentration, Lymnaea stagnalis. Introduction Snails are of great importance from viewpoint of economy. They are distributed worldwide. They are the source of animal protein and act as intermediate hosts of trematode parasites which are the causative agent of helminthes diseases. Like all other animals in the aquatic ecosystem, the abundance and distribution of fresh water snails depend on several ecological and water physico- chemical parameters. Lymnaea stagnalis are freshwater snails. These common pond snails are widely used in embryological studies 6 . Till date extensive studies have been carried out throughout the world on the embryology and different developmental stages of marine and freshwater snails. Series of incidents take place in the develpoment and maturation of snails viz., mating, hatching, cleavage, gastrula, blastula, post gastrular changes, organogenesis and morphogenesis, formation of trochophore larvae, formation of veligar larvae, teratogenesis, emergence of the young snails and their growth till adulthood. Breeding pattern was observed in different drug treatment in the snails. The egg type of Lymnaea acuminata was described as an iso-lecithal and the cleavage as spirally holoblastic type 7 . The embryological and cytological studies conducted over the last 20 years suggest the existence of several different types of embryonic determination in the course of the pond snail development. This investigation was carried out to know more about the effect of colchicine on mortality and reproductive performance of Lymnaea stagnalis. Materials and Methods Snail Collection The adult snail Lymnaea stagnalis were collected from the Pond of Botany Department, Dr Harisingh Gour Universirty, Sagar, M.P. and Sagar Lake, Madhya Pradesh. The collected snails were acclimatized in glass aquarium containing dechlorinated tap water in laboratory condition for 72h and used as the experimental animals 10 . Antitubulin Drug Colchicine is a toxic natural product and secondary metabolite and inhibits microtubule polymerization by binding to tubulin, tubulin one of the main constituents of microtubules. Availability of tubulin is essential to mitosis and therefore colchicine effectively functions as a “mitotic poison” or spindle poison. The antitubulin drugs of analytic grade of Colchicine procured from CDH company. Batch Experiment To study the effect of colchicine, snails in dechlorinated water were exposed to the sub-lethal concentration antitubiline drugs colchicine. Young ACKNOWLEDGEMENT : Author is thankful to Department of Zoology, Dr. Harisingh Gour University, Sagar for financial assistance during this work.