Cuttlefish use stereopsis to strike at prey

Feord, Rachael C.; Sumner, Mary E; Pusdekar, Siddhant; Kalra, Lalit; Gonzalez-Bellido, Paloma T.; Wardill, Trevor J.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aay6036

Cited by 44 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Thus, the stable relative alignment of the two eyes during approach likely reflects stabilization of the head itself. While several species with laterally-placed eyes use convergent eye movements during prey capture to create a wider binocular field [16][17][18][19] , our results show that mice do not utilize this strategy during prey capture. These results suggest that the 40 degree binocular zone is sufficient for tracking centrally located objects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 63%

“…How then do animals with laterally placed eyes target prey directly in front of them, especially when these targets can rapidly move in and out of the narrow binocular field? This could require the ability to modulate the amount of binocular overlap, through directed lateral eye movements, to generate a wider binocular field, such as in the case of cuttlefish [16] , fish [17] , many birds [18] , and chameleons [19] . In fact, these animals specifically rotate their eyes inward before striking prey, thereby creating a larger binocular zone.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dynamics of gaze control during prey capture in freely moving mice

Michaiel

Abe

Niell

2020

Preprint

102

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Many studies of visual processing are conducted in unnatural conditions, such as head-and gaze-fixation.As this radically limits natural exploration of the visual environment, there is much less known about how animals actively use their sensory systems to acquire visual information in natural, goal-directed contexts.Recently, prey capture has emerged as an ethologically relevant behavior that mice perform without training, and that engages vision for accurate orienting and pursuit. However, it is unclear how mice target their gaze during such natural behaviors, particularly since, in contrast to many predatory species, mice have a narrow binocular field and lack foveate vision that would entail fixing their gaze on a specific point in the visual field. Here we measured head and bilateral eye movements in freely moving mice performing prey capture. We find that the majority of eye movements are compensatory for head movements, thereby acting to stabilize the visual scene. During head turns, however, these periods of stabilization are interspersed with non-compensatory saccades that abruptly shift gaze position. Analysis of eye movements relative to the cricket position shows that the saccades do not preferentially select a specific point in the visual scene. Rather, orienting movements are driven by the head, with the eyes following in coordination to sequentially stabilize and recenter the gaze. These findings help relate eye movements in the mouse to other species, and provide a foundation for studying active vision during ethological behaviors in the mouse.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 63%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of gaze control during prey capture in freely moving mice

Michaiel

Abe

Niell

2020

Preprint

102

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Previous studies have shown that cuttlefish rely on several mechanisms to extract distance/depth information (Schaeffel et al, 1999;Mathger et al, 2013;Josef et al, 2014;Helmer et al, 2017). A recent study using the "anaglyph" glasses paradigm to examine cuttlefish's stereopsis demonstrated that they could extract depth information from the disparity between left and right visual fields, akin to the stereopsis mechanism found in vertebrates (Feord et al, 2020). However, estimating the distance of a moving target accurately whilst the cuttlefish itself is moving is not an easy task.…”

Section: Cuttlefish Use Flexible Tactics To Capture Moving Preymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Messenger (1968) was the first to systematically examine the visual attack of cuttlefish and characterize the sequence of preying behavior into attention, positioning, and seizure. In the attention phase, the whole animal turns to face the prey and aligns its anterior-posterior body axis with the prey via convergent eye movement, a form of stereopsis (Feord et al, 2020). During the positioning phase, the cuttlefish swims toward or away from the prey until it is roughly one mantle length away from it.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual Attack on the Moving Prey by Cuttlefish

Hung

Lin

et al. 2020

Front. Physiol.

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Visual attack for prey capture in cuttlefish involves three well characterized sequential stages: attention, positioning, and seizure. This visually guided behavior requires accurate sensorimotor integration of information on the target's direction and tentacular strike control. While the behavior of cuttlefish visual attack on a stationary prey has been described qualitatively, the kinematics of visual attack on a moving target has not been analyzed quantitatively. A servomotor system controlling the movement of a shrimp prey and a high resolution imaging system recording the behavior of the cuttlefish predator, together with the newly developed DeepLabCut image processing system, were used to examine the tactics used by cuttlefish during a visual attack on moving prey. The results showed that cuttlefish visually tracked a moving prey target using mainly body movement, and that they maintained a similar speed to that of the moving prey right before making their tentacular strike. When cuttlefish shot out their tentacles for prey capture, they were able to either predict the target location based on the prey's speed and compensate for the inherent sensorimotor delay or adjust the trajectory of their tentacular strike according to the prey's direction of movement in order to account for any changes in prey position. These observations suggest that cuttlefish use the various visual tactics available to them flexibly in order to capture moving prey, and that they are able to extract direction and speed information from moving prey in order to allow an accurate visual attack.

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“…Several experimental conditions could be tested with this setup, for example videos of males fighting, a male during courtship display, and specific polarisation degree or angle displayed by the monitor. In fact more studies have found that controlled stimuli can revealed visual abilities in cuttlefish that were previously unknown, as the recent work by Feord et al, [Feord et al, 2020] that reported stereopsis in S. officinalis.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neuroethology of the visual communication in the mourning cuttlefish Sepia plangon

Galan¹

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Animals communicate in response to different tasks, including alarm calls, allocation of food, courtship, and mating. Different types of signals are used by animals to communicate, such as chemical signals, vocalisations, colour patterns, and movements. Animal colouration and visual communication have fascinated researchers for decades. Behavioural, anatomical and functional studies are commonly used to study visual communication in both vertebrates and invertebrates. Cuttlefish are well known for possessing intricate body patterns. Cuttlefish use these colourful and dynamic displays to communicate with mates, camouflage, and pursue prey. The cuttlefish central nervous system processes all the visual stimuli and coordinates the expression of postures, body movements, skin textures and colourations that form a body pattern. Interestingly, many species of cuttlefish are colour blind but possess polarisation vision and polarisation patterns in their bodies, which are potentially used for communication with conspecifics. The objective of this thesis is to analyse the mechanisms influencing visual communication and colour patterns in a small coastal cuttlefish Sepia plangon. The mourning cuttlefish S. plangon is a small species with a mantle length (ML) < 140 mm. This species inhabits coastal waters and prefers to forage in seaweed and seagrass environments. It is located to a maximum depth of 85 meters and is active during the day. After introducing the topic of this thesis in detail in chapter 1, we analysed the ontogenetic changes of S. plangon body patterns from embryos to adults in chapter 2. The first description of S. plangon eggs and embryos is included in this chapter. However, because the eggs were collected from their natural environment, only late embryonic development was described. The number and complexity of the body patterns of S. plangon changed throughout the lifespan, transitioning from three body patterns in embryos to a maximum of 18 in males. Seven patterns were exclusive to males and used only during reproductive behaviour. Therefore, in chapter 3, we analysed courtship, mating, and agonistic competition of S. plangon. Three sex ratios were used to study mate choice: 1Male(M):1F(F), 2M:1F, and 1M:2F. Polarised and unpolarised filters were placed between the animals to test the effect of modifying polarised stimuli in the reproductive behaviour of S. plangon. 3D printed cuttlefish models were used to manipulate specific traits (two body sizes, two postures, four body patterns) and determine which factor was crucial to successful mating. The components of the body patterns, reproductive behaviours and visual signals were analysed. We found that only sex ratio had a significant effect on male courtship frequency. Agonistic competition between males included visual signals, and most males avoided fighting. Small males (ML < 80 mm) used a deceptive display to mimic female patterns, avoid male competitions, and mate with females. The dynamic changes in body patterns were the most crucial element for ...

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Cuttlefish use stereopsis to strike at prey

Cited by 44 publications

References 38 publications

Dynamics of gaze control during prey capture in freely moving mice

Dynamics of gaze control during prey capture in freely moving mice

Visual Attack on the Moving Prey by Cuttlefish

Neuroethology of the visual communication in the mourning cuttlefish Sepia plangon

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