Investigating body patterning in aquarium-raised flamboyant cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi)

Abstract

Cuttlefish are known for their ability to quickly alter their total appearance, or body pattern, to camouflage or to communicate with predators, prey and conspecifics. The body patterns of some species have been extensively documented to gain a better understanding of their behaviors. However, the flamboyant cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi) is largely unstudied. Recently, aquarists have been able to breed, house and display M. pfefferi, giving researchers ample opportunities to study their behavior under those conditions. This study aimed to identify the dorsally-visible components of the body patterns used by 5 sexually-mature, freely-behaving, F5 generation M. pfefferi in their home aquarium at The Seas in Epcot at Walt Disney World Resorts®, Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA. Furthermore, we aimed to determine the most probable patterns used by this population of animals and to create a database of components that can be used in future behavioral studies. We found that this population of M. pfefferi use a combination of 7 textural, 14 postural, 7 locomotor and between 42 and 75 chromatic components in their home aquarium. Using maximum likelihood analysis and AutoClass@IJM software, we found that these components combine to generate 11 distinct body patterns. The software was able to sort 98% of the live animal observations into one of the 11 patterns with 90% confidence and 88% of observations with 99% confidence. Unusually for cuttlefish, 8 of the 11 identified patterns contained at least one “traveling” component (i.e., traveling waves or blinking spots) in which the colors on the skin appeared to travel on the animal’s mantle. In other species, these components are generally seen during hunting or aggression, but this population of M. pfefferi uses them frequently during a variety of contexts in their home aquarium. With few published data on the behavior of M. pfefferi in their natural environment, we cannot compare the behavior of the tank-raised individuals in this study to animals in the wild. However, this study provides the groundwork necessary for future studies of M. pfefferi body patterning and behavior.

Social Media and citizen science provide valuable data for behavioural ecology research: Are cuttlefish using pursuit-deterrent signals during hunting?

“…M. pfefferi, and all Sepia spp. looked at here) was observed within active hunting or ambush events, suggesting that they are not independent hunting modes themselves, as previously thought 16 , but rather body patterns (chromatic, textural, postural) or locomotor components that can be simultaneously/sequentially expressed and aid hunting by the addition of prey distraction or prey deception 20,21,26 .…”

“…Identified behaviour components (n =164) were titled using accepted terminology and descriptions, published in Hanlon and Messenger 16 and peer reviewed articles 15,26,[42][43][44] .…”

“…For example, M. pfefferi achieved "tripod" posture with four points of benthic contact (e.g. fourth arm pair and two posterior ventral mantle "glutapods" 26 ), whereas Sepia spp. supported themselves at three points (e.g.…”

Neuroethology of the visual communication in the mourning cuttlefish Sepia plangon

“…All videos were reviewed using QuickTime (version 10.5 © ), and we extract frames of the videos using Matlab R2019a © . We used the body patterns descriptions in other cuttlefish species, such as Sepia officinalis, Metasepia pfefferi, and Sepia pharaonis to identify the body patterns of S. plangon [Hanlon and Messenger, 1988, Borrelli et al, 2005, Schnell et al, 2015b, Thomas and MacDonald, 2016, How et al, 2017 and [Nakajima and Ikeda, 2017].…”

“…For instance, the common European cuttlefish Sepia officinalis [Sanders and Young, 1940, Boycott, 1961, Hanlon and Messenger, 1988, Bassaglia et al, 2013, the common European octopus (O. vulgaris) [Boycott, 1953, Young, 1971, Wells and Young, 1972, Shomrat et al, 2008, Nesher et al, 2014, and the common long-finned squid Loligo plei [Young, 1977, Hanlon, 1982, Morris et al, 1993, Mooney et al, 2010a. Nonetheless, there is a growing number of studies that have investigated the behaviours and sensory systems of small cephalopod species, such as the pygmy squid Idiosepius spp [Shigeno and Yamamoto, 2002, Wild et al, 2015, Koizumi et al, 2018, the flamboyant cuttlefish Metasepia pfefferi [Roper andHochberg, 1988, Thomas andMacDonald, 2016], and the bobtail squid Euprymna spp [Shashar and Hanlon, 1997, Callaerts et al, 2002, Lee et al, 2009a, Lee et al, 2009b. Small species are easy to maintain in captivity, which facilitates behavioural observations under controlled conditions (e.g., light condition and long term experimentations).…”