Document Type

Article

Department/Program

Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Publication Date

9-1944

Journal

Biological Bulletin

Volume

87

Issue

2

First Page

145

Last Page

152

Abstract

For the past two years, workers at the Virginia Fisheries Laboratory, Williams- burg, have been attempting to rear larvae of the commercially important blue crab from the egg through all zoeal stages. In 1941 Dr. Margaret S. Lochhead worked out a successful method of hatching the eggs (Lochhead, Lochhead and Newcombe, 1942) and reared the larvae to the "second zoea" stage. During the summers of 1942 and 1943 this work was continued by Mrs. Mildred Sandoz and Miss Rosalie Rogers, who succeeded in rearing a number of individuals to the "third zoea" stage. The anatomy of the first and second zoeal stages was described in detail by Hopkins (1943). Churchill (1942) described five zoeal stages found in plankton tows at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Churchill's first and second zoeae seem to be identi- cal with those reared from blue crab eggs at the Virginia Fisheries Laboratory, but his third zoea is markedly different from the third zoea reared at this laboratory, as reported by Sandoz and Hopkins (1944).

It is now realized, by the agencies concerned with regulation of the crab fishery in Chesapeake Bay, that a more detailed knowledge of the biology of the crab is needed.

Publication Statement

Contribution (Virginia Fisheries Laboratory) ; no. 20

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