Abstract
Data collected from the commercial landings in the central-southern Tyrrhenian Sea
(GSA 10) and in the South Adriatic Sea (GSA 18) allowed to estimate the at first maturity of both sexes of Eledone cirrhosa (GSA10: female 9.1±0.11 cm; male 8.8±0.09 cm, GSA18: male 7.8±0.05 cm, female 9.7±0.06 cm). Analyses of the maturity cycle in the GSA 18 indicated that the reproduction period was occurring in the summer season.
The horned octopus Eledone cirrhosa (Lamarck, 1798) is common in whole Mediterranean Sea, where it represents one of the most important resource of the demersal fisheries mainly caught by bottom trawlers. This species shows a very wide bathymetric distribution with a higher occurrence within 300 m depth (Belcari et al., 2002). The reproductive biology is characterized by a single reproductive event during the whole life span (semelparous species) (Cuccu et al., 2003; Orsi Relini et al., 2006).