MODIFIED LABORATORY CULTURE TECHNIQUES FOR THE EUROPEAN CUTTLEFISH SEPIA OFFICINALIS

The cuttlefish Sepia officinalis Linnaeus, 1758, is an important model for a variety of biological and biomedical investigations (1). To introduce this organism to the North American research communities, and make it readily available, various methods have been used to maintain or culture the species. The most intensive efforts and successes have been achieved by Forsythe and colleagues at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (2,3). Their most noteworthy achievement was to culture seven consecutive generations in large-scale recirculating seawater systems. Recently, cuttlefish were brought to the Marine Resources Center (MRC) of the Marine Biological Laboratory, where they have also been cultured successfully through their life cycle. Presently the third laboratory generation is under culture. Unlike previous work on Sepia culture in the United States, our focus has been to use a mostly open (flow-through) seawater system modified to function well through a northern winter, and to develop feeding methods that are suitable for our locale.