Female Body Research Articles

Female bodies and dynastic legitimacy in the Nereid Monument at Xanthos

Abstract This article reassesses the so-called Nereid Monument (ca 380 BCE) at Xanthos in Lycia by focusing on the narrative and symbolic role of female figures within its sculptural programme. Constructed as the tomb for the Lycian dynast Erbbina, the monument has been noted for its over-human-size sculpture of Nereids, its historicising city-siege reliefs, as well as its spectacular fusion of visual and architectural styles, motifs and themes from various contexts throughout the Aegean and Anatolia. Building on this scholarship, I turn specifically to the monument’s innovative representations of non-mythological women in prominent areas of its visual programme: Erbbina’s dynastic consort and a distressed woman who is caught in the throes of military violence. By focusing on the role of female bodies in Erbbina’s funerary qua triumphal monument, I argue for the important narrative function of female bodies in articulating dynastic legitimacy and continuity. Finally, this article comments on the importance of femininity in addition to masculinity in dynastic expressions in the fourth century, thus anticipating major art-historical changes in the art of power at the beginning of the Hellenistic period.

Anatomy of the clitoris: the corona of the glans clitoris, clitoral coronal papillae, and the coronopreputial frenulum.

The corona of the glans clitoris is a clinically important yet poorly understood anatomical structure. There has been longstanding confusion regarding the prevalence of the corona of the glans clitoris and, moreover, its very existence. Therefore, this anatomical study assesses the prevalence of the corona of the glans clitoris and the gross anatomy of the proximal glans clitoris. Anatomy was assessed in 104 female donor bodies ranging in age from 50 to 102 years with an average age-at-death of 78.1±10.9 years (mean±SD). All clitorises (100%; 104:104 dorsums and 100%; 208:208 sides) were found to have a well-defined clitoral corona. Three of 104 (2.9%) coronas possessed grossly visible, outward-projecting, bluntly rounded papillae. Some donors possessed a coronopreputial frenulum. Clitoropreputial adhesions were common and associated with clitoral pearls. Clitoral pearls were identified in 37.8% (14:37) of unembalmed donors and observed to create clitoral craters, structural deformations in the surface of the corona and glans. The results of this study suggest that the corona of the glans clitoris is a ubiquitous anatomical structure. The clitoral coronal papillae and coronopreputial frenulum are novel, previously undescribed, anatomical structures. This study identifies that the corona of the glans clitoris is prone to pathological processes such as clitoral pearl formation and clitoral deformation. In addition to novel anatomical findings, the results of this study call attention to the need for life-long clitoral examinations. Furthermore, the corona of the glans clitoris should be regularly included in anatomical texts and accurately depicted in anatomical illustrations.

Singing Blackness

In this article I propose the exploration of racial discourse in recent Black Caribbean rap and hip-hop productions. Rap and hip-hop are often used as a sociopolitical tool that—through writing and language—achieve to create activist movements. Specifically, I study the work of the Cuban hip-hop group Obsesión [Obsession] and of Cuban rapper Robe L Ninho and the work of Dominican rappers Circuito Negro and JNoa. I particularly focus on some of their songs that make of the genre an opportunity to approach the racial topic in their communities and a way to celebrate Blackness. This way, these hip-hop and rap songs break the most commercial, common, and expected pattern of lyrics that focus on topics that oversexualize the female (Black) body, that often objectify women, and that reproduce a patriarchal and heteronormative discourse. Instead, these songs, through the topics that they explore, aim to create community and craft a space for social activism. They do so, for example, by singing about hair (Obsesión and Robe L Ninho) and by singing about their Afro-Caribbean communities and their existence as Black people in their neighborhoods (Circuito Negro, JNoa). Among a variety of tracks, I mainly focus on songs that are connected in topic and that represent a continuumin the production of approximately the last decade. So, for example I analyze the songs “Los pelos [Hair]” by Obsesión (2014) and “N.E.G.R.O. [N.E.G.R.O.]” by Robe L Ninho (2022) that focus on Afro hair, celebrate the beauty of it, and denounce the prejudices against it almost a decade apart from each other. Then, I focus on the song “Revolufunk” by Circuito Negro (2011) and the song “Qué fue[What Happened?]” (2022) by JNoa. In this case also there is a generational gap between the artists that symbolize both the evolution of the genre and the consistency of the topics that they cover and that are connected to Blackness. In addition to the racial discourse and the connection of topics across the last decade, these songs also create an inter-Caribbean discourse that transcends the concept of nation and nationality and instead identifies with and shapes a message for Black Spanish-speaking Caribbean people. These songs reveal a poetic that adds urban sounds to a spoken word tradition and that mixes writing, oral tradition, and language in lieu to create a sociopolitical activist movement for Afro-Caribbean people. Also, by focusing on race in countries where the Black communities are often made invisible, they shed light on minorities that usually are relegated to the lowest layers of society. Thus, through their music, these artists raise awareness on their Blackness and on their communities, but they also create a transversal Afro-Caribbean narrative that connects and creates a sense of community among Blacks in the Caribbean in their native Spanish language. This study, so, represents an opportunity to shift a US-centered discourse on Blackness and race and opens new ways of living and understanding the African diaspora in other geographies.

"I Felt Like I Was Cut in Two": Postcesarean Bodies and Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Switzerland.

In neoliberal cultural contexts, where the ideal prevails that female bodies should be unchanged by reproductive processes, women often feel uncomfortable with their postpartum bodies. Cesareaned women suffer from additional discomfort during the postpartum period, and cesarean births are associated with less satisfying childbirth experiences, fostering feelings of failure among women who had planned a vaginal delivery. In Switzerland, one in three deliveries is a cesarean. Despite the frequency of this surgery, women complain that their biomedical follow-up provides minimal postpartum support. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapists address these issues by providing somatic and emotional postcesarean care. CAM is heavily gendered in that practitioners and users are overwhelmingly women and in that most CAM approaches rely on the essentialization of bodies. Based on interviews with cesareaned women and with CAM therapists specialized in postcesarean recovery, I explore women's postpartum experiences and how they reclaim their postcesarean bodies.

The Power of Female Figures in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Two Trains Running by August Wilson

The Power of Female Figures in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Two Trains Running by August Wilson

“A saint, a heroine, and a town”: The incarnation of “rose” and poetics of resistance in Edwidge Danticat's Claire of the Sea Light

AbstractEdwidge Danticat in her novel Claire of the Sea Light (2013) delineates a group of determined women who actively challenge the patriarchal norms prevalent in Haiti. This article conducts a thorough textual analysis focusing on the imagery of the “rose” and its intricate connections with women in the narrative. Through the elaborate naming of Ville Rose, the incarnation of rose as female figures in the novel, as well as the resistance and resilience that rose represents in the female genealogy, Danticat places women at the center of the stage, reclaiming the often neglected, silenced, and marginalized roles of women in Haitian history. This article argues that by foregrounding the unique perspective and experience of Haitian women, Danticat questions the patriarchal hegemonic discourse, reformulates the female discursive system, and reshapes the male‐dominated Haitian literary tradition. This exploration of her poetics of resistance not only contributes to the understanding of Haitian (women's) literature and Caribbean diasporic studies but also provides a new perspective for plant studies within the realm of literature.

The effects of paternal dietary fat versus sugar on offspring body composition and anxiety-related behavior

Increasing evidence suggests that the pre-conception parental environment has long-term consequences for offspring health and disease susceptibility. Though much of the work in this field concentrates on maternal influences, there is growing understanding that fathers also play a significant role in affecting offspring phenotypes. In this study, we investigate effects of altering the proportion of dietary fats and carbohydrates on paternal and offspring body composition and anxiety-related behavior in C57Bl/6-JArc mice. We show that in an iso-caloric context, greater dietary fat increased body fat and reduced anxiety-like behavior of studs, whereas increased dietary sucrose had no significant effect. These dietary effects were not reflected in offspring traits, rather, we found sex-specific effects that differed between offspring body composition and behavioral traits. This finding is consistent with past paternal effect studies, where transgenerational effects have been shown to be more prominent in one sex over the other. Here, male offspring of fathers fed high-fat diets were heavier at 10 weeks of age due to increased lean body mass, whereas paternal diet had no significant effect on female offspring body fat or lean mass. In contrast, paternal dietary sugar appeared to have the strongest effects on male offspring behavior, with male offspring of high-sucrose fathers spending less time in the closed arms of the elevated plus maze. Both high-fat and high-sugar paternal diets were found to reduce anxiety-like behavior of female offspring, although this effect was only evident when offspring were fed a control diet. This study provides new understanding of the ways in which diet can shape the behavior of fathers and their offspring and contribute to the development of dietary guidelines to improve obesity and mental health conditions, such as anxiety.

Evaluation of Virtual Grid processed clinical pelvic radiographs.

A physical scatter grid is not often used in pelvic bedside examinations. However, multiple studies regarding scatter correction software (SC SW) are available for mobile chest radiography but the results are unclear for pelvic radiography. We evaluated SC SW of Fujifilm (Virtual Grid) on gridless pelvic radiographs obtained from a human Thiel-embalmed body to investigate the potential of Virtual Grid in pelvic bedside examinations. Gridless, Virtual Grid, and physical grid pelvic radiographs of a female Thiel-embalmed body were collected with a broad range of tube loads. Different software (SW) grid ratios-6:1, 10:1, 13:1, 17:1, and 20:1-were applied on the gridless radiographs to investigate the image quality (IQ) improvement of 13 IQ criteria in a visual grading analysis (VGA) setup. Gridless radiograph scores are significantly lower (p<0.001) than Virtual Grid and physical grid scores obtained with the same tube load. Virtual Grid radiographs score better than gridless radiographs obtained with a higher tube load which makes a dose reduction possible. The averaged ratings of the IQ criteria processed with different SW ratios increase with increasing SW grid ratios. However, no statistically significant differences were found between the SW grid ratios. The scores of the physical grid radiographs are higher than those of the Virtual Grid radiographs when they are obtained with the same tube load. We conclude that Virtual Grid with an SW ratio of 6:1 improves the IQ of gridless pelvic radiographs in such a manner that a dose reduction is possible. However, physical grid radiograph ratings are higher compared to those of Virtual Grid radiographs.

Submissive housewives, unfaithful spouses, dysfunctional marriages and violence: the portrayal of gender roles and marriage in Moroccan jokes

ABSTRACT This paper examines Moroccan marital discourse as portrayed in popular culture, specifically jokes that circulate orally and online. Our analysis focuses on fifty jokes related to husbands, wives, and marriage. We employed content analysis for the entire dataset and critical discourse analysis (CDA) using Van Dijk's ‘socio-cognitive’ method for a subset of jokes. The study reveals prevalent stereotypes and societal views on husbands and wives, with a special emphasis on the role of women in Moroccan marriages. These views represent shared ideologies, influencing how individuals in society think, speak, act, and interact. The humour reflects marital conflicts, infidelity, and misogyny as commonplace. Several jokes normalise violence and animosity toward wives. The selected jokes predominantly depict women as passive, insecure, nagging, and reliant on their husbands, who are the primary breadwinners. Women’s contributions to the family are typically limited to motherhood and cooking, and their concerns are shown to be trivial. Negative portrayals of wives, a prevalence of jokes in which females are engaged in infidelity, and reinforcement of traditional gender roles demonstrates a societal concern with regulating the female body and maintaining patriarchy.

She Speaks for Millions: The Emergence of Female Diplomatic Voices in the Russo-Ukrainian War

This research critically investigates the public diplomacy strategies deployed by a cohort of influential female European leaders on Twitter during the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022-2023. The study comprises eight leaders - Kallas (Estonia), Marin (Finland), von der Leyen (President of the European Commission), Metsola (President of the European Parliament), Sandu (Moldova), Simonyte (Lithuania), Zourabichvili (Georgia), and Meloni (Italy) - representing millions of constituents. By mirroring the analytical attention given to Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this study scrutinizes the distinct approaches and differences in emotional, cognitive, and structural language use between these influential female figures and President Zelenskyy in their respective Twitter discourse during the crisis. By employing the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)-22 dictionary, this research intends to uncover unique patterns and nuances in the language use of these leaders, thereby offering fresh insights into the gendered communication and diplomacy employed by the female cohort during conflicts. Keywords: Public diplomacy, Female leadership, Russo-Ukrainian War, Twitter communications, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), Diplomacy, gendered communication

Maternal Practice and the Chuetas of Mallorca: The Inquisitorial Trials of Pedro Onofre Cortés

In the inquisitorial archive of Pedro Onofre Cortés, alias Moixina, we see fellow practitioner protesting his son’s marriage to Clara Sureda because she was an Old Christian. The poor match was blamed on the breast milk that was ingested as an infant, “andaba con cristianos porque había mamado leche de una mujer cristiana” (he went with Christians because of the milk drunk milk from a Christian woman) (Picazo y Muntaner). In early modern Spain, breastmilk was seen as responsible for transmitting virtues and vices, religious expressions of faith and moral traits. Following Galenic medical understanding equating milk with blood, it was women who were responsible for the transmission of purity, impurity (Alexandre-Bidon 175), for contamination and difference (Martínez 47). This brief citation reflects the hybrid environment and the dual practices that deeply informed the lives of the converso Jews. Moreover, the understanding of the hereditary nature of these traits, and the traditions of Judaism and Christianity, so often mixed in unique combinations are clearly demonstrated in the Inquisition trials of Cortés and his Chueta brethren. As regulation over the mother and the female body became increasingly important in controlling Iberian subjects and its empire, conversos complicate the feminization of impurity. This article explores how the conversos known as the Chuetas of Mallorca understood their religiosity and difference as seen through the lens of hybridity, breast milk and maternal care.

S/exploitation, Self-Sexploitation and Self-Expression in Nigerian Music: Lyrics and Body Designs in the Videos of Yemi Alade

Some videos produced in the Nigerian entertainment industry are lush in the objectification and s/exploitation of the female body, which  is common with hip-hop music superstars. This has continued to attract scholarly attention in feminism and media studies. In spite of the  backlash, some Nigerian female music superstars have also adopted this trend in their music video productions. This article focuses on a  Nigerian female hip-hop music star, Yemi Alade, with specific reference to two of her videos, Ferrari (2016) and Shake (2019), as uploaded  on YouTube on 25 March 2016 and 20 November 2019 respectively. Adopting the Theory of Visual Pleasure as proposed by Laura Mulvey’s  (1973), the study employs ethnography and netnography methods of data collection. By ethnography the visual content of the  selected videos were adopted as data, while through netnography, selected comments by YouTube viewers were captured as data, and  for analysis. Among other things, we observed that Alade’s fans were divided along different ideologies in her demonstration of  objectification and s/exploitation, while many ignored the import of these projections. Many expressed discomforts at the messages and  visuals of the videos, while others find pleasure and satisfaction in them. The study reveals that the import of objectification and  sexploitation is detrimental mostly to women, while it delivers profiteering to the artiste-producer. 

The vagina problem: a step too far in parent–child sex communication with young children

ABSTRACT Parents describe a want for better sex education for their young children compared to their own myth and silence-led experiences while growing up. However, introducing the vagina has proved a challenging step too far for many parents. This study arose from a secondary qualitative data analysis of 20 focus groups with parents in Ireland about how they engaged in body and sexuality communication and socialisation practices with young children, aged 4 to 9 years old. Though parents often utilised euphemisms, the language applied to male bodies tended to be generic, while euphemisms for female bodies tended to be family-specific. The language used in talking about the female body evaded reference to the vagina and talking about its functions. Protecting the child from knowledge about the sexual body was aligned with maintaining innocence and delaying the child’s transition to adulthood. Parents demonstrated a commitment to stop using myths but still placed boundaries around their young children’s sex education, albeit boundaries that were being redefined. Perpetuating intergenerational taboos, placing boundaries on knowledge of the sexual body, impacts a child’s ability to fully integrate their body into their sense of self.

Corporeal Conflict: Unmaking and Making the Self in Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman

The classical canons of literature create and consider the construction of women as objects of beauty and desire, who are motivated by no concern for themselves, inherently weak and impoverished. This study seeks an alternative narrative structure to such cultural constructions by exploring how Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman (1969) portrays and represents the female body in connection with female agency and power by writing against classical representations. Accordingly, this study employs recent theorists who blend feminist perspectives with theories based on the body including Elizabeth Grosz, Susan Bordo and Kim Chernin along with feminist literary critics including Simone de Beauvoir and Linda Hutcheon. By incorporating feminist theory and body politics together with literary criticism, this study presents a discourse of resistance and the potentiality of a new meeting point for shared experience and a common knowledge. In this regard, Atwood’s The Edible Woman suggests that there is agency and power to be attained through the knowledge of our bodies. As a counter-narrative, The Edible Woman promotes a resistance to dominant cultural and social constructions that proceed to objectify and undervalue the female body. Atwood’s novel attempts to bring a credibility and a value to knowledge to which we gain through our corporeal experience. What emerges from this perception is that corporeal knowledge appears to be essential to be able to acquire an understanding of our existence as well as to be read as a means to resistance.

Serving toward Release

Abstract Autonomy is not universally considered the basis of agency in all cultural and historical contexts, nor is it always seen as a prerequisite to “freedom” and “liberation,” standing in conceptual opposite to coercion. In Caribbean Hindu contexts, the notion of service (sevā) as a form of (religious) work is aimed at decentering and dissolving the self for ultimate release from worldly suffering. Historically, regarding post-indenture Suriname and Guyana, some social actors understood godnas—the tattoos of especially senior Hindu women who identified as descendants of Indian indentured laborers—as a means of capacitating women and female bodies toward this goal by allowing them to conduct religious work. Some women with these tattoos considered godnas as voluntary and enabling. Their interpretations diverged from contemporary discourse, which links these tattoos to a presumed compulsory Hindu tradition that subjugated wives to husbands and in-laws. These varied assessments along a continuum of coercion and voluntariness highlight a continued focus on the conceptual binary that (un-)freedom obscures other relevant aspects of the (indentured) workers’ experiences. It runs the risk of reproducing Eurocentric notions of freedom, coercion, and work/labor, shrouding the pertinence of spiritual capital and (religious) rewards in analyses of coercive practices and structural violence.

A reinterpretation of human breast anatomy includes all the layers of the anterior body wall.

Mammary glands define mammals as a group, yet a comprehensive anatomical description of the mammary gland does not exist for almost any mammalian species. In humans, the anatomical and surgical literature provide conflicting and incomplete descriptions of the gross anatomy of the breast. We dissected 9 male and 15 female human body donors to clarify this gross anatomy. We found that, like other epidermally derived glands of the body, the mammary glandular tissue is constrained to a membrane-bound, central structure referred to as the corpus mammae in the surgical literature, and not dispersed throughout the breast as typically described in the anatomical literature. The major fasciae of the human anterior body wall, including the superficial fatty Camper's fascia and the deeper membranous Scarpa's fascia, both contribute to the structure of the breast. This anatomical arrangement suggests that, as the mammary gland invaginates posteriorly from the integument during embryological development, the mammary fat pad most likely derives from Camper's fascia, and growth of Scarpa's fascia around this fat pad forms the anterior and posterior lamellae of the breast pocket. Anteriorly, Scarpa's fascia becomes a double layer that creates the surface structure of the breast. Posteriorly, Scarpa's fascia forms a circummammary ligament that (1) stabilizes the breast against the thoracic wall and (2) is continuous with Scarpa's fascia on the rest of the anterior body wall. The suspensory ligaments of the breast represent the typical retinaculae cuti found consistently throughout the human body wall, and do not directly attach to the skin. Instead, these retinaculae attach to the anterior or posterior lamella of Scarpa's fascia.

Violence on social networks related to the body image of young women and its repercussions on health.

Social networking sites perpetuate gender stereotypes, inequalities, and gender violence, generating adverse health effects. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between Instagram, alcohol consumption and effects on health, through interviews and discussion groups involving adolescents (high school or university students and workers), during the period from the third to the sixth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 118 individuals participated in the study. Three coding clusters were identified: (1) Inequality in the representation of men and women on SNSs; (2) Violence towards women's bodies and sexual violence on SNSs; and (3) Health problems derived from violence against women's body image on SNSs. The main focus of our analysis was the exhibition of the female body, in which eroticization of the body prevails and gender roles are perpetuated. Violence is generated towards women in the form of misogynistic attacks for daring to challenge conventional stereotypes. Many interviewees coincide that the main health effects include low self-esteem, anxiety and eating disorders. The institutional response to the abuses and violence committed on SNSs against women is weak, and public policies are needed to protect women in these environments where they are especially vulnerable.

BEYOND VEILS: AN IPA STUDY OF FILIPINO MUSLIM WOMEN’S BODY NARRATIVES

Guided by Feminist Standpoint Theory and Intersectionality, this study is dedicated to unveiling the body narratives of Filipino Muslim women or 'Muslimahs' and creates a space for a critical reflection on societal constructs that shape the perception of their bodies. Through the draw-talk process, participants were encouraged to visually and verbally articulate their perceptions of the female Muslim body according to religious teachings and cultural ideologies, as well as their contemporary interpretations and experiences - Bridging the gap between traditional Islamic teachings, cultural beliefs, and contemporary experiences of Muslimahs. Employing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), the research unveils seven themes: 'A Muslimah is Covered,' 'A Muslimah is Protected and Esteemed,' 'A Muslimah is Modest and Clean,' 'A Muslimah is Nurturing,' 'Expressing Individuality,' 'Challenges of Being a Minority,' and 'Not Oppressed, but Actually Empowered.' The first four themes address traditional narratives rooted in cultural and religious norms, emphasizing modesty, protection, and nurturing roles within the Muslim community. The subsequent three themes delve into contemporary experiences, including the expression of individuality, challenges faced by religious and cultural minorities, and assertions of empowerment and freedom derived from faith. This study opens opportunities for a broader discourse on body construct, identity, and tradition-modernity interactions, standing against stereotypes and calling for a more inclusive and accepting society. It challenges preconceived notions and recognizes the diverse agency and autonomy of Muslimahs in shaping their narratives.

“Green peppers, tomatoes, and lemons, disunite!”: Feminist solidarity in times of wars

AbstractThis article focuses on female bodies co‐laboring across the racial lines and academic‐activist divides to explore both the potentials and constraints of feminist solidarity in the hyper‐masculine and ultra‐nationalist normative order of the global war on terror. Anthropological studies have deconstructed phantasmatic narratives of the global war on terror by disclosing its racialized and classed structure. However, what remains understudied is how racialized female bodies are subjected to the biopower and necropower of this war. This ethnography concentrates on the feminist solidarity between Özlem Yasak and Serra Hakyemez, the coauthors of this article, which stretches over 13 years and moves between the colony and the metropole and the Global South and Global North. It examines how a Turkish academic and a Kurdish activist (both lower middle‐class women) forge, cultivate, and repair their comradeship as they move from an immigration office to their family house to neoliberal universities. Based on what we call the Other‐graphy as a new feminist method, this article argues that the global war on terror expands its reach as the humanitarian and neoliberal regimes of power recruit activists and academics to the fantasy of autonomous subjectivity posited against their possible political solidarity.

Population ecology of the intertidal xanthid crab Leptodius exaratus (H. Milne Edwards, 1834) (Decapoda: Brachyura: Xanthidae) on rocky shores in Kuwait, Arabian (Persian) Gulf

Abstract Leptodius exaratus (H. Milne Edwards, 1834) is an exploited species that has been used as bait for recreational fishing in Kuwait. The biological and ecological aspects of the species required to manage this practice are limited. We investigated the life history and population ecology of L. exaratus in the northwestern Arabian (Persian) Gulf. The spawning season of the crab in Kuwait starts in the late spring and continues through the summer and ends in September. Fecundity is highly correlated to female body size and ranges 2,533–11,991 eggs clutch–1, with a mean number of 7,055 eggs clutch–1. Juveniles are generally recruited between July and September, with lower minor recruitment levels occurring in October and November. Growth is highly seasonal, being slow during the cold season (October-February) and high during the warmer season (March and September), with a higher growth rate in males than in females. The seasonality of growth and reproduction of L. exaratus in the region is strongly related to ambient air and water temperatures. Sexual dimorphism is highly significant between males and females with males, reaching reproductive maturity at 17.43 ± 0.53 mm carapace width (CW) and females at 9.58 ± 1.21 mm CW. The overall sex ratio for the species is 0.8:1 (males:females). Furthermore, the life span of 3–4 yr and an overall mortality slightly higher in males than in females. The results of our study could be used to determine fishery management strategies such as minimum catch sizes and closures periods. The results on life history and dynamics of the complex life cycle of L. exaratus contribute to conservation and sustainable exploitation of the species in Kuwait.