Caribbean reef squid, Sepioteuthis sepioidea, use ink as a defense against predatory French grunts, Haemulon flavolineatum

Ink From Longfin Inshore Squid, Doryteuthis pealeii, as a Chemical and Visual Defense Against Two Predatory Fishes, Summer Flounder, Paralichthys dentatus, and Sea Catfish, Ariopsis felis

“…obs.). A similar effect was seen for French grunts, Haemulon flavolineatum, another visual predatory fish, in which either a cloud of ink from the Caribbean reef squid or a cloud of dye delayed approaches (Wood et al, 2010). However, it should be noted that our methods do not allow us to conclusively exclude the possibility that the effects of dye in the cloud assay are from interaction of dye chemicals with the olfactory sense of the predator, especially since this dye is unpalatable to summer flounder (food assay, Fig.…”

“…The dye, McCormick Black food color, consists of FD&C colors Red 40, Blue 1, Yellow 5, phosphoric acid, sodium benzoate (as preservative), and water. In previous work (Wood et al, 2008(Wood et al, , 2010, a different food color-a mixture of McCormick food colors Red, Blue, and Green-was unpalatable to French grunts (Wood et al, 2010). The mixture of Red, Blue, and Green contains three ingredients also present in our McCormick Black food color-Red 40, Blue 1, Yellow 5-but it contains three components not in Black food color-Red 3, propylene glycol, and propylparaben; it also lacks two components present in Black food color-phosphoric acid and sodium benzoate.…”

“…This assay was used to determine if squid ink affects the approach phase of feeding behavior of summer flounder. This assay is generally similar to an assay previously used on French grunts Haemulon flavolineaum (Wood et al, 2010) and blue head wrasse Thalassoma bifasciatum (Nusnbaum and Derby, 2010b). In this assay, squid ink and other treatments were presented as a "cloud" while the flounder approached a piece of food.…”

“…The first is as an intraspecific alarm cue, which causes conspecifics to produce escape behaviors such as jetting or inking (Gilly and Lucero, 1992;Lucero et al, 1994;Wood et al, 2008). A second mechanism is interspecific defense, based on the use of aversive, distasteful chemicals, as shown for ink of Caribbean reef squid Sepioteuthis sepioidea against a predatory fish, the French grunt Haemulon flavolineaum (Wood et al, 2010). The possibility that cephalopod ink functions as a phagomimetic defense has been considered because the ink of cephalopods contains millimolar concentrations of dissolved free amino acids that are appetitive feeding stimuli for predatory fishes (Caprio and Derby, 2008).…”

“…The possibility that cephalopod ink functions as a phagomimetic defense has been considered because the ink of cephalopods contains millimolar concentrations of dissolved free amino acids that are appetitive feeding stimuli for predatory fishes (Caprio and Derby, 2008). However, in the single test of this idea, using Caribbean reef squid and French grunts, no support was found (Wood et al, 2010). Some have proposed that cephalopod's mucousy ink may disrupt a predator's chemical senses (MacGinitie and MacGinitie, 1968;Fox, 1974;Kittredge et al, 1974;Prota et al, 1981;Moynihan and Rodaniche, 1982) in a way that may be similar to sensory inactivation by sea hares (Love-Chezem et al, 2013), but there is no published experimental evidence to support this claim.…”