Cuttlefish restrain themselves from eating crabs for lunch when there will be shrimp for dinner!
Some animals optimize their foraging activity by learning and memorizing food availability, in terms of quantity and quality, and adapt their feeding behaviour accordingly.
In this study published in Biology Letters, we showed that cuttlefish can adopt dynamic and flexible foraging behaviours including selective, opportunistic and future-dependent strategies, in response to changing foraging conditions.
Here, we investigated whether cuttlefish flexibly adapt their foraging behaviour according to the availability of their preferred prey. We showed that cuttlefish switch from a selective to an opportunistic foraging strategy (or vice versa) when the availability of their preferred prey at night is predictable versus unpredictable. Cuttlefish also exhibited day-to-day foraging flexibility, in response to experiencing changes in the proximate future (i.e. preferred prey available on alternate nights). Indeed, cuttlefish reduced their consumption of crabs during the daytime when shrimps were predictably available the following night, but not when shrimps won't be available at night. Their daytime foraging behaviour appeared dependent on shrimps' future availability. Overall, cuttlefish can adopt dynamic and flexible foraging behaviours including selective, opportunistic and future-dependent strategies, in response to changing foraging conditions.