Size at maturity and biological information of mud crab, S.olivacea (herbst 1796) from Kedah coastal water

Abstract

The study objective are to investigate size at maturity of S. olivacea, to determine relationships between carapace width (CW) (cm) - body weight (BW) (g) of S. olivacea and to determine the size distribution of the mud crab, S. olivacea from the Kuala Kedah coastal water, Kedah conducted to deceive the size at maturity (CW so) of mud crab. The study area is Kedah coastal water. The type of mudcrab that had been studied is Scylla olivacea from Kedah coastal water. The number of crabs that were collected since July 2011 to December 2011 in determining the size at maturity is 821 for both sex and 371 males mud crab and 450 females mud crab. The size at maturity (CWso) was determine for both male and female with the presence of both mature and immature crab. The size at maturity recorded in this case was 8.8cm CW for female and 7.5cm for male crab. From this study sex ratio for S. olivacea is 1 :0.82(female: male) and it also show that the crab carapace width was increase more than their body weight.