Brood pouch (Peracarida)

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Bathyporeia elegans with an egg in its marsupium.
Bathyporeia elegans with an egg in its marsupium.

The marsupium or brood pouch, in peracarida such as amphipods, isopods or cumaceans, is an egg chamber formed by the ventral plates. These are appendices which are attached to the coxae of the first pereopods. Females lay their eggs directly into the brood chamber, and the young will develop, undergoing several moults, before emerging as miniature adults referred to as mancae. Males have no marsupium.

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