The number of eggs laid varied with the size and
weight of females (Table 1), it ranged from 2050
to 150 500 eggs for females of 4.71 and 39.1 g
respectively. Valenti, Mello and Loba˜o (1986,
1989) observed for M. acanthurus female carries
about 189,000 eggs. In the present study, the
number of eggs carried by a female prawn was
directly proportional to its body weight
(r2 = 0.819) at P < 0.05, the deduced linear regression
equation for this relationship was: no. of
eggs = 3441.3 wt. of female – 32 292 (Table 2,
Fig. 4).