Title THE LIFE HISTORY OF NECTOBRACHIA INDIVISA FRASER, 1920 (COPEPODA: LERNAEOPODOIDA) A PARASITE OF THE STAR- RY FLOUNDER

ajor professor) The stages in the life history of the parasitic copepod Necto-brachia indivisa Fraser, 1920, have been described. The adult female lives permanently attached to the gills of the starry flounder, Platichthys stellatus (Pallas, 1811) Girard, 1854. The adult male is a dwarf, which usually lives attached to the genital process of the female. The eggs hatch into free-swimming, but relatively inactive nau-plii. They usually molt after 20-40 minutes into vigorous free-swimming copepodid larvae. The copepodid either remains in the gill chamber of the original host or migrates to a new one of the same species. After about three days it attaches itself by means of a chitinous disc and filament to the cuticle of an adult female copepod, usually Nectobrachia indivisa but occasionally Acanthochondria rectangularis (Fraser, 1920) Oakley