Thesis (BS Biology) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, 2000

Spider eggs collected from starved female argiope amoena were squashed and later fixed in Carnoy?s solution. The egg-fixative solution was stained with acetocarmine and mounted on glass slides for mitotic investigation and karyotypic analysis. The interphase nuclear diameter ranged from 4 to 5.5mm at 1000X while prophase nuclear length and width ranged from 4.5 to 9 mm at 1000X and 4 to 9mm at 1000X respectively. It was observed that the phophase nuclei were oval. The average mitotic indices obtained ranged from 68.8% to 85.2%. during metaphase stage, chromosomes aligned themselves at the metaphase plate, while in anaphase, the chromatids separated from each other and moved toward the opposite poles. In telophase, two sets of chromosomes were observed. The somatic chromosome number of A amoena revealed to be 2n=10, while studies on A. shillongensis and A. catenulate revealed to be 2n=24. But this does not imply that A. amoena is not related to the species mentioned. Relatedness of species may be explained through gene sequencies and not merely on the chromosome number. The chromosomes were classified as median, submedian, and subterminal. The mean average relative lengths of the premetaphase chromosomes were 0.2001 and 0.202, from cell 1 and cell 2 respectively. Arm ratios ranged from 1.238 to 3.33 in cell 1 and 1.13 to 2.25 in cell 2