Reproduction
The female carries between 20–200 eggs under the side flaps of her abdomen whereby they take 3–4 months to hatch. Over this time male sperm production corresponds with females' reproductivity. Once hatched juvenile koura cling to their mother’s abdomen using their pincers to attach until they have reached a length of 4–10 millimetres (0.16–0.39 in). At this stage they resemble adult koura in appearance. In Lake Rotoiti in the central North Island of New Zealand the main breeding period occurs between April–July (autumn–winter) with a second breeding period occurring from October–January (spring–summer). The total breeding length time from peak egg laying to the release of juveniles is estimated to be 28 weeks for the autumn–winter period and 19–20 weeks in spring–summer breeding groups. This difference is attributed to warmer temperatures speeding up the egg development process. In stream populations this growth period has been shown to take around 25–26 weeks in P. planifrons, and up to 60 weeks for P. zealandicus in Otago streams.
Read more about this topic: Paranephrops
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“Although Samuel had a depraved imagination—perhaps even because of this—love, for him, was less a matter of the senses than of the intellect. It was, above all, admiration and appetite for beauty; he considered reproduction a flaw of love, and pregnancy a form of insanity. He wrote on one occasion: “Angels are hermaphrodite and sterile.””
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