Background and objective: Mud spiny lobsters, Panulirus polyphagus (P. polyphagus) are one of the most important fisheries resources now-a-days due to quality that it's possessed. However, there is still lack of in-depth study about this species mainly on males testicular characteristics and sexual maturity size. Therefore, the present study was carried out to investigate the histological characteristics on the testes and sexual maturity sizes of mud spiny lobster, Panulirus polyphagus.
Materials and methods: The testes were dissected out and fixed in 10% buffered formalin solution for 11 h, dehydrated in 70% alcohol and lastly placed in tissue processor for 18±1 h at 60°C. The tissues blocks were cut at the thickness of 4 μm on a rotary microtome. Stained tissues were taken under Advance Microscope (Nikon Eclipse 80i Nomarski DIC). Collected data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2013. Data were presented as mean±standard deviation. Statistical analyses were done using one-way ANOVA using SPSS (Version 22).
Results: These lobules of mature P. polyphagus were formed via different germinative lineage cells such as spermatogonia, spermatocytes, spermatids and spermatozoa. The histological characteristics of testes showed that the process of spermatogenesis went through the stages of four testes maturation which were spermatogonia I and II, spermatocytes I and II, spermatids and spermatozoa stages within different body weight of P. polyphagus. It was found that there were significant difference between body weight and carapace length to the testicular maturation stages (one-way ANOVA and p = 0.000).
Conclusion: The results of this experiment indicated that males P. polyphagus have four stages of testes maturation and can be considered to have fully mature testes that ready for fertilization at 452 g body weight (BW) and 107 mm carapace length (CL) or more.
Keywords: Mud spiny lobster; Panulirus polyphagus; sexual maturity; spermatogenesis process; testes; testicular histological assessment.