EN

Piero Amodio

doi:10.14573/altex.1401282s

Abstract

The willingness of the cephalopod mollusc Octopus vulgaris to attack a live crab is traditionally used as a method to assess the overall health and welfare of octopuses in the laboratory. This method requires placing a crab in the home tank of an animal, measuring the time (latency) taken for the octopus to initiate an attack and withdrawing the crab immediately prior to capture. The same crab is commonly used to assess multiple octopuses as part of daily welfare assessment. Growing concern for the welfare of crustaceans and a review of all laboratory practices for the care and welfare of cephalopods following the inclusion of this taxon in Directive 2010/63/EU prompted a study of the utility of an artificial crab to replace a live crab in the assessment of octopus health. On consecutive days O. vulgaris (N=21) were presented with a live, a dead or an artificial crab, and the latency to attack measured. Despite differences in the predatory performance towards the three different crab alternatives, octopuses readily attacked the artificial (and the dead) crab, showing that they can generalize and respond appropriately towards artificial prey. Researchers should consider using an artificial crab to replace the use of a live crab as part of the routine health assessment of O. vulgaris.

Highlights

Cephalopods have been utilized for more than one hundred years to explore aspects of their biology, physiology and mostly in neuroscience
Since the pioneering studies initiated at the end of the 1940s, acclimatization in cephalopods is assessed by measuring the latency to attack a live prey, usually crab or prawn (Boycott, 1954; Messenger, 1968; Duval et al, 1984; review in: Borrelli and Fiorito, 2008; Boal, 2011)
In compliance with the 3Rs principles, here we investigated the use of an artificial crab as a replacement, i.e., a dummy or stimulus model, for a live crab to assess the willingness of an octopus to attack, and the potential for this method to be utilized during acclimatization and daily health monitoring of O. vulgaris

Summary

Introduction

Cephalopods (nautiloids, squid, cuttlefish and octopus) have been utilized for more than one hundred years to explore aspects of their biology, physiology and mostly in neuroscience. These studies provided important information on basic cellular and behavioral processes, including learning and memory, that appears shared among many taxa (Hochner et al, 2006; Borrelli and Fiorito, 2008; Hochner, 2012; Brown and Piscopo, 2013; Huffard, 2013). The acquisition of experience in captivity reduces the requirements for a moving object, revealing contextual learning and plasticity of behavior (Hochner et al, 2006; Borrelli and Fiorito, 2008; Huffard, 2013)

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