Preliminary experiments carried out at the Aquaculture Department of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Centre in the Philippines have achieved success in the rearing of viable F₁ postlarvae of Penaeus monodon from pond reared stocks. Unilateral eyestalk ablation was carried out on 100 female. 7 of these had successfully spawned at 23-months. Egg numbers up to 355,000 per female and successful hatch rates of up to 81% wee obtained. Bilaterally ablated female suffered total mortality by 196 days from eyestalk removal without 1 recorded spawning. Similarly, no spawnings were obtained from unablated controls. It is difficult to determine whether success can be solely attributed to unilateral ablation, or whether a fortuitous choice of experimental site played some major role. In any case, the data obtained are a valuable guide for future work aimed at propagating P.monodon commercially under fully controlled conditions.