Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 71, Issue 3, March 2006, Pages 511-514
Animal Behaviour

Early familiarization overrides innate prey preference in newly hatched Sepia officinalis cuttlefish

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.04.019Get rights and content

In the cuttlefish Sepia officinalis, hatchlings do not benefit from parental care and have to search independently for their own food. We investigated the effect of exposing newly hatched cuttlefish to a nonpreferred prey on their subsequent choice of prey. We tested the choice of food between crabs (nonpreferred) and shrimps (preferred) made by 3-day-old cuttlefish that had been exposed visually and chemically to crabs at hatching, or had been exposed visually only to crabs, or had had no exposure to crabs. Juveniles that had been exposed to crabs significantly preferred crabs, whereas hatchlings that had had no crab exposure preferred shrimps. These results show that a simple visual exposure to a naturally nonpreferred prey immediately on hatching is sufficient to change the juvenile cuttlefish's innate preference.

Section snippets

Methods

Sepia officinalis eggs were obtained from a single egg-laying bout of a single female (hence homogenizing the date of hatching) that was originally fished by traps in the vicinity of Luc-sur-Mer, Calvados, France and kept in a large tank (1500 litres) at the ‘Centre de Recherches en Environnement Côtier’, Luc-sur-Mer, France. Eggs initially laid in clusters were separated to ensure optimum development conditions and were put in strainers floating in tanks. All tanks were supplied with running

Results

In group 1, two of 20 eggs failed to hatch so that the final sample was 18. On day 3, 14 of the 18 juveniles of group 1 chose crabs and four chose shrimps. In group 2, nine of 10 juveniles chose crabs and one chose shrimps. Hence in both treated groups, juveniles chose significantly more crabs than shrimps (chi-square exact test: group 1: χ12 = 5.6, P < 0.05; group 2: χ12 = 6.4, P < 0.05; Fig. 1). At the same age, eight cuttlefish from group 3 chose shrimps, one chose crabs and one made no choice.

Discussion

We found that a simple visual exposure to a naturally nonpreferred prey immediately at hatching, for a period of 5 h, was sufficient to induce a significant change in the juvenile cuttlefish's initial preference. As a consequence, prey recognition seems to be not simply genetically guided but also influenced by visual stimulation at hatching, and potentially during the last stages of embryonic development. This study also shows that the behaviour of newly hatched cuttlefish is plastic with

Acknowledgments

We thank the staff of the Centre de Recherches en Environnement Côtier for their technical assistance. We are very grateful to John Harris and Christine Harris for helping to correct the English. This research was supported by a grant from the French embassy in Israel (Keshet program number 29) to N.S.

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    1

    N. Shashar is at the Interuniversity Institute of Eilat, P.O. Box 469, Eilat 88103, Israel.

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