On a Gonyaulax bloom off Mt Dalley, in the Arabian sea

Several reports were published on the ' red tide ' or ' discoloration of water ' of the sea by Torrey (1902), Sommer et al. (1937), Allen (1946), Hayes and Austin (1951) and Brongersma-Sanders (1957). Various organisms were found to be responsible for such phenomenon in the west coast of India; an unidentified Peridinium was reported by Hornel (1917), two species of Coclodinium by Hornel and Nayudu (1923), Noctiluca miliaris by Bhimachar and George (1950), Gymnodinium sp. by Subrahmanyan (1959) and Gonyaulax ~olygramma by Prakash and Sarma (1964)