如果知道有更好的食物在等著，墨魚可以克制自己不吃

如果知道有更好的食物在等著，墨魚可以克制自己不吃

Cephalopods such as octopuses and squids may demonstrate some impressive smarts, but the latest research on cuttlefish may just blow your mind.

章魚和魷魚等頭足類動物可能表現(xiàn)出一些令人印象深刻的智慧，但對墨魚的最新研究可能會讓你大吃一驚。

Researchers have found that cuttlefish fed to a schedule will very quickly cut back on eating less enticing food, so they can gorge themselves on their favourite later on.

研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，按照時間表進(jìn)食的墨魚會很快減少進(jìn)食不那么誘人的食物，留好肚子享受之后的大餐。

This means that not only are cuttlefish seemingly able to memorise the feeding schedule, they're incorporating that schedule into future planning, and then exercising self-control to make the most of their favourite food (shrimp, yum).

這意味著墨魚不僅能記住進(jìn)食時間表，還能把這個時間表納入未來的計劃，然后鍛煉自我控制，最大限度地食用它們最喜歡的食物(蝦、美味)。

The experiment was conducted on 29 European common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis). These little guys were put in tanks, and tested to see what their favourite food was.

研究人員以29條歐洲常見墨魚(Sepia officinalis)為實(shí)驗(yàn)對象。把這些小家伙被放在水箱里，測試他們最喜歡的食物是什么。

They were given crab and shrimp at the same time, five times a day for five days; whichever food item they went for first was interpreted as the favourite. All 29 cuttlefish were all about that shrimp.

他們同時吃螃蟹和蝦，每天五次，連續(xù)五天;他們最先選擇的食物通常是最受歡迎的。所有的29條墨魚都是先吃蝦。

Given that cephalopods diverged from the vertebrate lineage approximately 550 million years ago, finding comparable future-oriented abilities in cuttlefish might provide valuable evolutionary insight into the origins of such a complex cognitive ability.

“大約5億5千萬年前，頭足類動物就已經(jīng)從脊椎動物譜系中分化出來了，在烏賊身上發(fā)現(xiàn)類似的面向未來的能力，可能會為這種復(fù)雜認(rèn)知能力的起源提供有價值的進(jìn)化洞見。”

After this study, all the cuttlefish were kept in their respective labs. They participated in a few more non-invasive studies, and lived out their natural lifespans in comfortable cuttlefish habitats.

在這項研究之后，所有的墨魚都被保存在各自的實(shí)驗(yàn)室里。他們參加了一些非侵入性研究，在舒適的墨魚棲息地度過了他們的有生之年。

The research has been published in Biology Letters.

這項研究發(fā)表在《生物學(xué)快報》上。