Artículo de publicación ISIThe present study was undertaken to determine the effects of both extracapsular oxygen concentration and temperature on embryonic development in Chorus giganteus. In normoxia increasing water temperature from 12Cto18 C reduced by 15 days the median time required for the capsules to hatch. Hypoxia (oxygen content at 50% of air saturation) generated a low development rate and totally prevented both shell secretion and larval hatching from the egg capsule. Experimental transfer at weekly intervals, from normoxia to hypoxia and vice versa, induced a decrease and increase in the embryonic ash content, respectively, but did not affect the number of hatched larvae. Such an effect was more pronounced at 12C than at 15 Cor18C. The embryonic inability to produce a shell under hypoxia is likely to be a result of the low intracapsular oxygen concentration (IPO2) generated as the combined effect of a low extracapsular oxygen concentration (environmental) added to the intracapsular embryonic oxygen demands, which lowers the IPO2 still further. Under such conditions, a decrease in intracapsular pH is likely to take place, and, if so, embryos might divert carbonates away from shell calcification to balance such changes in pH.