Abstract
IT is usually supposed that movement is a necessary stimulus to initiate the attack of Octopus vulgaris on a crab and, for example, Boycott and Young say1 that “this movement is absolutely necessary; a crab which remains still, even in full view of an octopus, is not attacked”. In many experiments, the presentation of stimuli has been based on this conclusion; the stimuli were moved to attract the octopus2,3. My observations indicate, however, that O. vulgaris frequently attacks crabs which are not moving at the time and for some time before.
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References
Boycott, B. B., and Young, J. Z., Symp. Soc. Exp. Biol., 4, 432 (1950).
Wells, M. J., in Brain and Behaviour in Cephalopods (Stanford University Press, 1962).
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WODINSKY, J. Movement as a Necessary Stimulus of Octopus Predation. Nature 229, 493–494 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1038/229493a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/229493a0
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