The present report aims at listing the major species of prawns in the Philippines and describes the methods used in catching them including details of fishing grounds, and catch statistics.
Several species of prawns, along with other crustaceans such as lobsters, crabs and mysids provide fisheries of varying magnitude and value in the Philippines, though their commercial value is limited by selective demands of the market based largely on size, taste and availability.
The work so far done on the prawns of the Philippines has mostly been on the systematics of some of the most common species. Some of the reported species have been worked out by naturalists outside the Philippines on materials collected and deposited in foreign museums. Professor Eulogio Estam- pador, former colleague of the writer in the Department of Zoology, University of the Philippines, and Mr. Guillermo J. Blanco of the Bureau of Fisheries, have contributed much to Philippine carcinology. Their works are good sources of information on Philippine crustacean decapods. Blanco and Arriola, Cowles, Villaluz and Villadolid, have also made useful contributions to the study of Philippine prawns.
Studies on the morphology and anatomy of Philippine crustaceans of certain important commercial species have since 1954 been undertaken in the post graduate school of the University of Santo Tomas under the advisership of the writer.