Reproducción de hembras de la langosta Panulirus inflatus (Bouvier, 1895) en el litoral del Pacífico de México

the spiny lobster p. inflatus is a fishing resource of regional economic importance in guerrero, mexican tropical pacific coast where this lobster has not been studied enough. this analysis of the captures in guerrero′s coasts will contribute to a better managing of this fishery. we studied the size distribution of the capture, the percentages of reproductive females and the size class by climatic season, as well as the size of sexual maturity in 2569 lobsters collected from june 2004 to july 2005 in three zones in the guerrero's coastal region: copala, zihuatanejo and acapulco. the size composition and the size contributing with major number of lobsters to this commercial catch differed among the study sites. the wider range and the bigger sizes were obtained in acapulco followed by zihuatanejo and, finally, by copala. there were no significant differences for the percentages of reproductive females among between stations in the three places (c2, p>0.05) and the reproductive females (with spermatophores and/or ovigerous mass) grouped by size class, in general presented maximums in summer and autumn exempting the sizes under 50 mm lc and the ones over 80 mm lc. size at first sexual maturity in p. inflatus was 57.4 mm lc at copala, 63.6 mm lc at zihuatanejo and 68.6 mm lc at acapulco. the results indicate the necessity to manage the resource taking into account the differences among capture areas