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)，按照時間表進食的墨魚會很快減少進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)為實驗對象。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)雜認知能力的起源提供有價值的進化洞見。”

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驗室里。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。