Cuttlefish could be the first animals shown to learn
visually before birth or hatching, researchers say.
Cuttlefish embryos that develop in their translucent eggs with
crabs nearby hatch into youngsters with a distinct preference for eating crabs,
says Ludovic Dickel of the University
of Caen in France. Without that pre-hatch view
of crabs, the little cuttlefish attack shrimp in preference to crabs, he and
his colleagues report in the July Animal
Behaviour.
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