Parámetros de crecimiento, mortalidad y tasa de explotación del pulpo Octopus maya en Holbox, Quintana Roo, México

in the yucatan peninsula, southern mexico, octopus fishery is based almost entirely on the exploitation of an endemic species, octopus maya. in the state of quintana roo o. maya is captured around the island of holbox. to estimate some population parameters, monthly sampling of octopus captured by the smaller fleet at holbox for commercialization were undertaken in the fishing seasons of 2002 and 2003. differences in the composition of sexes were statistically significant, with a higher presence of females. consequently, the evaluation of growth parameters using the von bertalanffy equation was realized separately for females and males. for females, the parameters were: l∞ = 215 mm, of mantle length, k = 0.68 year-1; to = 0.34, while for males l∞ = 240 mm of mantle length, k = 0.99 year-1; to = 0.35. the length-weight relationship indicated an alometric relationship; p = 0.026 l2.16, for the females in 2002 and of p = 0.0076 l2.45 for the females in 2003. in the case of males the length-weight relationship was p = 0.015 l2.27 for 2002, and of p = 0.038 l2.12 for 2003, where p is the wet weight in g and l the mantle length in mm. total mortality were: z = 3.16 and m = 1.49, f = 1.67. the preliminary evaluation of the exploitation rate was e= 0.53 which indicates that the resource is exploited adequately.