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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

An Ethogram For Benthic Octopods (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae), Jennifer Mather, Jean S. Alupay Jun 2018

An Ethogram For Benthic Octopods (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae), Jennifer Mather, Jean S. Alupay

Jennifer Mather, PhD

The present paper constructs a general ethogram for the actions of the flexible body as well as the skin displays of octopuses in the family Octopodidae. The actions of 6 sets of structures (mantle–funnel, arms, sucker–stalk, skin–web, head, and mouth) combine to produce behavioral units that involve positioning of parts leading to postures such as the flamboyant, movements of parts of the animal with relation to itself including head bob and grooming, and movements of the whole animal by both jetting in the water and crawling along the substrate. Muscular actions result in 4 key changes in skin display: (a) …


Cephalopod Complex Cognition, Jennifer Mather Jun 2018

Cephalopod Complex Cognition, Jennifer Mather

Jennifer Mather, PhD

Cephalopods, especially octopuses, offer a different model for the development of complex cognitive operations. They are phylogenetically distant from the mammals and birds that we normally think of as ‘intelligent’ and without the pervasive social interactions and long lives that we associate with this capacity. Additionally, they have a distributed nervous system — central brain, peripheral coordination of arm actions and a completely separate skin appearance system based on muscle-controlled chromatophores. Recent research has begun to show how these apparently separate systems are coordinated. Learning and cognition are used toward prey, in antipredator actions and in courtship. These examples show …


Mating Games Squid Play: Reproductive Behaviour And Sexual Skin Displays In Caribbean Reef Squid Sepioteuthis Sepioidea, Jennifer Mather Jun 2018

Mating Games Squid Play: Reproductive Behaviour And Sexual Skin Displays In Caribbean Reef Squid Sepioteuthis Sepioidea, Jennifer Mather

Jennifer Mather, PhD

Observation of the sexual interactions of Sepioteuthis sepioidea squid during the short reproductive stage of their lives showed a scramble competition system, with both male and female polygyny. Mature females were faithful to a specific location in the daytime, whereas males moved from group to group and formed short-term consortships with females. Males defended females from other males, particularly with an agonistic Zebra display. Male–female pairs exchanged Saddle-Stripe displays, after which males might display an on–off Flicker. There was considerable female choice. Only if a female responded to this display with a parallel Rocking action would she pair and would …


Support For The Precautionary Principle, Jennifer Mather Jun 2018

Support For The Precautionary Principle, Jennifer Mather

Jennifer Mather, PhD

The precautionary principle gives the animal the benefit of the doubt when its sentient status is not known. This is necessary for advanced invertebrates such as cephalopods because research and evidence concerning the criteria for sentience are scattered and often insufficient to give us the background for the decision.


Cephalopods Are Best Candidates For Invertebrate Consciousness, Jennifer A. Mather, Claudio Carere Jun 2018

Cephalopods Are Best Candidates For Invertebrate Consciousness, Jennifer A. Mather, Claudio Carere

Jennifer Mather, PhD

Insects might have been the first invertebrates to evolve sentience, but cephalopods were the first invertebrates to gain scientific recognition for it.


An Invertebrate Perspective On Pain, Jennifer A. Mather Jun 2018

An Invertebrate Perspective On Pain, Jennifer A. Mather

Jennifer Mather, PhD

Although Key (2016) argues that mammals feel pain and fish do not, from an invertebrate perspective, it is obvious that the pain experience is shared by animals from a number of different animal groups.