Certain members of the family Mytilidae have long been recognized either as major commercial species in aquaculture or as fouling pests. These sea mussels possess a remarkable capacity to get translocated to distant shores through driftwood and hull fouling in adult stages and through ballast water during larval stages. In a survey under the Ballast Water Management Programme, several individuals of the bivalve Modiolus auriculatus were collected from reinforced cement concrete harbour structures in Visakhapatnam. These collections constitute a new record of the species on the north-eastern coast of India.
