REPRODUCTION IN SEA ANEMONE 473 



TABLE 1 

 MATURATION STAGES OF MALES 



Stage Description 



Stage 1 First appearance of spermatogonia 



Stage 2 Spermatogonia! proliferation; swelling of spermatogonia! vesicles 



to occupy one-fourtli of mesenterial width 

 Stage 3 First appearance of spermatocytes; further vesicular swelling 



(up to one-half of mesenterial width) 

 Stage 4 First appearance of tailed sperm; vesicles occupy up to three-fourths 



of mesenterial width 

 Stage 5 Gonads ripe, occupy entire width of mesentery 



Spawning Sperm vesicles breaking down; many tailed sperm present 

 Residual Only a few unspawned sperm remain 



this may be an artifact of early collecting technique (i.e., all small 

 anemones from a single clone). Beginning in March, oocytes appeared 

 and grew through the summer. An examination of live material 

 indicated that some females were spawning on July 21, 1974. 

 Subsequent analysis of the histologically prepared material supported 

 this finding. Spawning continued for more than a month; samples 

 taken Aug. 18 showed two females ripe and one having spawned. By 

 Sept. 17, only residual oocytes remained. Small oocytes appeared 

 again at the end of October and developed through the winter and 

 spring, reaching peak size by July 11, 1975. Spawning was not 

 observed until Aug. 8, by which time it was complete, except for a 

 few residual gametes that persisted until early October. The third 

 year showed the same course of development. 



Spermatogonia were present in samples from the Morro Bay 

 control site in February, and the first few tailed sperm had appeared 

 by March 1974 (Fig. 4). Ripe gonads occurred by April, and 

 spawning had begun by Aug. 18. Although spawning was apparently 

 complete by Sept. 17, residual gametes remained through the end of 

 October. The 1975 pattern was quite similar to that found in 1974, 

 v^th ripe sperm appearing as early as April and spawning beginning in 

 August. A few late-spawning individuals were collected on Nov. 17 

 although the third year's cycle had already begun. The cycle was 

 repeated in 1976. 



In the outfall, only 14 of 27 samples taken over the course of 

 this project had male gonads present; all these occurred between late 

 spring and early fall. Males ranging from early spermatogonia! 

 proliferation to first presence of tailed sperm were found in April 

 1974, and the population was ripe by May. Although the June 



