Effects of feeding live or frozen prey on growth, survival and the life cycle of the cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis (Linnaeus, 1758)

Domingues, P.; Sykes, António V.; Sommerfield, Anne; Andrade, José Pedro

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/10905

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Abstract(s)

The European cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis belongs to the family Sepiidae. About 100 species of cuttlefish have been found around the world (Okutani 1990). From these, S. officinalis, is one of the most well known, and the most easily cultured (Forsythe et al. 1994). This species has been grown in laboratories and public aquaria around the world (Boletzky 1983; Clarke et al. 1989, Domingues 1999) and more than two or three consecutive generations have been cultured throughout the years (Richard 1966; Pascual 1978; Boletzky 1979; Toll and Strain 1988; Forsythe et al. 1994; Lee et al. 1998; Domingues et al. 2001b). Cuttlefish (S. officinalis) hatchlings are born as miniature replicas of adults, and have similar basic behavior as adults, namely a marked benthic mode of life (Warnke 1994). During the first few weeks of their life, cuttlefish have to be fed live prey, usually mysid shrimp (Richard 1975; Forsythe et al. 1994; Domingues 1999; Domingues et al. 2001a). Afterwards, they will accept dead food, such as frozen shrimp, fish or crabs (DeRusha et al. 1989; Forsythe et al. 1991; Domingues et al. 2001a). Some authors have cultured this species making this transition to dead food (Pascual 1978; Forsythe et al. 1994), while others fed live prey throughout the life cycle (Domingues et al. 2001a, 2001b, 2002).