Reproductive biology of the Suez Canal spider crab Schizophrys aspera (H. Milne Edwards, 1834: Crustacea: Brachyura: Majidae)

Hamed A El-Serehy; Khaled A Al-Rasheid; Nesreen K Ibrahim; Fahad A Al-Misned

doi:10.1016/j.sjbs.2015.07.003

Reproductive biology of the Suez Canal spider crab Schizophrys aspera (H. Milne Edwards, 1834: Crustacea: Brachyura: Majidae)

Saudi J Biol Sci. 2015 Nov;22(6):789-94. doi: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2015.07.003. Epub 2015 Jul 29.

Authors

Hamed A El-Serehy¹, Khaled A Al-Rasheid², Nesreen K Ibrahim³, Fahad A Al-Misned²

Affiliations

¹ Marine Science Department, Faculty of Science, Port Said University, Port Said, Egypt ; Zoology Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
² Zoology Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
³ Marine Science Department, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt.

Abstract

A reproductive biology study of the spider crab Schizophrys aspera (H. Milne Edwards, 1834) was conducted in the Suez Canal from July 2012 to June 2013. The annual sex ratio (Male:Female) of S. aspera was female biased with values of 1:1.25. Out of the four ovarian development stages of this crab, two stages were observed in the Suez Canal throughout the whole year. The ovigerous crab's carapace width varied from 28 to 52 mm. This crab species can spawn during most of the year in the canal water, with a peak during late spring and early winter. The fecundity of ovigerous females ranged between 2349 and 13600 eggs with a mean of 5494 ± 1486 eggs. Female crabs that reached sexual maturity exhibited a minimum carapace width varying between 22 and 46 mm, and fifty percentage of all ovigerous females showed a carapace width of 36 mm.

Keywords: Brachyuran crabs; Fecundity; Schizophrys aspera; Sex ratio; Sexual maturity; Suez Canal.