Abstract: Copepods are the key group in aquatic ecosystems, and play an important role in energy flow, the cycle of materials and information transfer. This paper summarized the distribution and composition of the copepods that spawn resting eggs in the estuarine and coastal marine areas. It also reviewed the survival time, hatching rates, abundance of resting eggs in the sediments, and the potential recruitment into the plankton population as correlated with environmental factors. The prospects of copepod resting egg ecology were also proposed in order to provide new ideas for future research.