Embryonic development of the red snow crab Chionoecetes japonicus (Decapoda: Oregoniidae), inhabiting the meso and bathypelagic zones of the Sea of Japan

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the seasonal changes in embryonic development of the red snow crabs inhabiting the deep sea using wild and captive ovigerous females. The embryonic stages were categorised into 14 groups based on their external morphology. Females with recently spawned eggs (between stage 1 and early stage 3), those with the eggs at the midterm stage (mainly stages 7 and 8), and those with eggs just before hatching (stage 14) were observed simultaneously from January to March indicating a 2-year reproductive cycle. These findings aid in understanding and identifying the spawning years of the red snow crabs sampled from their natural habitats.

KEYWORDS:

• Deep-sea crab
• hatching
• multiparous crab
• reproductive cycle
• reproductive seasonality
• spawning

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the crew of the Taikimaru fishing vessel for collecting the crabs used in this study. We are also grateful to two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions, which have improved the manuscript. The Fisheries Agency of Japan funded this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available in the article.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/07924259.2024.2375064.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the The Fisheries Agency of Japan.