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The biological crusts on lateritic soils, red soils and mine-waste burdened soils in the eastern region of India covering a transect of about 800 km were principally composed of sheathed cyanobacteria of the genera Scytonema, Tolypothrix and Lyngbya along with few other species of Cylindrospermum, Nostoc, Calothrix and Fischerella. Molecular phylogeny based on 16S rRNA gene sequence of these cyanobacteria along with those occurring in different habitats of four different continents formed a distinct clade, however, were clustered close to other filamentous cyanobacteria.