The Fishery and Bionomics of the Swimming Crab Callinectes Amnicola (Deroucheburne 1883) from a Tropical Lagoon and its Adjacent Creek, South-West Nigeria
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Date
2008
Authors
Babatunde, E.E
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Academic Journals Inc.
Abstract
The fishery and the bionomics of the swimming crab Callinectes amnicola from Lagos lagoon and its adjacent creek, south-west Nigeria was investigated from October 2003 to March 2004. The results indicate that the lift net was highly selective for the crab. The wire basket trap was more tedious to operate because of the fencing and gear fixing techniques that are needed for proper installation. The longevity of the wire trap was 3 to 3½ months. The Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE) (number of crabs per traps) ranged between 2.5 and 15 crabs for lift nets; between 5.6 and 17 crabs for wire basket traps. C. amnicola were more abundant at depth 1.5 and 2.0 m in the lagoon. The maximum size of crab from the lagoon catch and creek was 16.6 cm with a weight of 348.5 g. The crab exhibited positive allometric growth. The condition factor was higher in males than females and increased in crab size. The fecundity ranged between 1,148 and 736,266 eggs, the average number of eggs per females was 141,290. Male: Female ratio was 1:0.39. A larger proportion of stomachs from the samples contained food (80.8%) with very few (19.2%) with empty stomach. The major food items were molluscs and crustaceans, apart from fishes and algal filaments which formed only between 0.4 and 4.0% of the food of C. amnicola from the lagoon and the creek. There was no variation in the feeding habits in relation to size.
Description
Staff Publications
Keywords
Fishery , Bionomics , Basket Trap , Feeding Habits
Citation
Babatunde, E.E (2008) The Fishery and Bionomics of the Swimming Crab Callinectes Amnicola (Deroucheburne 1883) from a Tropical Lagoon and its Adjacent Creek, South-West Nigeria. Journal of Fishery and Aquatic Science 3(2)