A onemonth starvation experiment was conducted to investigate its influence on the female Odontobutis potamophila during overwintering period. The control group was fed with satisfaction of living Cardina sinensis. By the end of the experiment, a significant decrease in the body weight (P<0.05) and an extremely significant decrease in the hepatopancrea somatic index (P<0.01) were observed respectively in the starving group. The percentage of the middle phase 3 oocytes and the late phase 3 oocytes which had potential to become maturation eggs soon had reduced sharply in ovaries of the starving group. And their ovaries had also developed more slowly than those phase Ⅳ ovaries of control group, just reaching middle phase Ⅲ. All those results showed the negative effects of starvation on gonadic development of female O. potamophila overwintering. On the other hand, there was no significant difference (P>0.05) found in the gonadosomatic index of the starving group within 28 d. The variations of the ovary lipovitellin concentration, the VTG gene expression in livers and the serum vitellogenin concentration of the starving group entirely showed highlowhigh trend, and in 28 d the values of the ovary lipovitellin concentration and the VTG gene expression reached (14.31±1.11) μg/mg and 2 081.08±124.86 respectively in the starving group, showing no significant difference (P>0.05) compared to the fullfed control. Resorbing and reusing evidences of the degraded yolk granules were observed in the starving fish’s ovaries. Those results suggested that there was a compensatory mechanism existing in the starving female O. potamophila, just like in some seawater fishes, to ensure reproductive success by consuming its energy deposition, and that the compensatory mechanism was characterized in several ways.