Thursday, July 26, 2007

Identification of Male and Female

The sexes are separate and the males are larger than females. The body can be divided into cephalothorox and abdomen and there are about 20 appendages of which six pairs are located on the head portion of the cephalothorox eight pairs on the chest portion of the cephalothorax, and the rest on the abdomen. These appendages are used for various purposes such as sensory, touching, cutting and grinding feed, capture of food and handling, waking, swimming and propulsion etc. The Male have a large cephalothorax and narrow abdomen. The second pair of chelate legs of male are long, robust and large. They have a gonopore at the base of the fifth pair of legs and an appendex masculine on the endopod of the second pair of swimming legs.

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