REPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOUR AND EARLY EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT OF Trachypleus tridentatus

This paper reports the season, environmental conditions and pattern of spawning, fecundity and hatching amount of king crab, Trachypleus tridentatus.The egg-diameter of this animal has seasonal variations, which is different from that reported in foreign countries.The egg cleavage of the animal is in the transitional pattern from holoblastic cleavage to surface division.Egg cleavage occurs firstly on one pole with false cleavage furrows, the number of division nucleus increases continuously which move outward from the yolks to form into a layer of blastomere on the surface of the blast together with some of egg plasma.The blastomere formed into the blastoderm and the polygonal cells encircled in this cell layer is equal to the "yolk cells" of insects during the period of egg cleavage.The formation of the periblas-tula is the result of egg cleavage.This paper makes application of the technique of vital staining in exploring the properties of the stained particles.