Abstract:

The spawning habits including brood size,the number of broods,ovarian development of spawned females of 53 gravid females of Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba Dana,were investigated on board ship JiDi during the austral summer of 1992/1993 in the Prydz Bay region,the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. Most of the females spawned only once. The brood size ranged from 225 to 5919 eggs with average of 2132. Only two females spawned secondly 5 and 7 days after the first spawning with brood size of 516 and 492 respectively. There were no or only a few (average of 32) mature oocytes remained in spawned ovaries. The regeneration of oocytes were not observed during 1-39 days after the spawning. The brood size increased with the increasing of body weight and body length, but the correlation were poor.