On the unusual occurrence of penaeid eggs in the inshore waters of Madras

Abstract

During one of the routine inshore plankton collections along the Madras coast, in the first week of February 1964, the tow net happened to sink down about 3 metres below the surface. The resulting haul consisted of an unprecedented number of penaeid eggs. On estimation a total of 3,00,000 eggs and 15,000 free nauplii were found to be present in that particular haul of 30 minutes duration. There appears to be no other report of such an abundance of penaeid eggs occurring in Indian waters, especially in the coastal waters of Madras. This phenomenal abundance of penaeid eggs is of considerable significance as regards the bionomics of Indian penaeid prawns. These eggs were transferred to fresh sea water and the progress of development was followed. The present brief report embodies the results obtained.