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Preface
students, technicians, amateur aquarists, researchers attempting to culture species
as yet uncultured, researchers attempting to improve yields or reduce costs, those in
industry looking to upscale cephalopod culture enterprises for food production, as
well as suppliers to the aquarium trade.
‘Cephalopod Culture’ also looks to the future. Recent breakthroughs, such as
the successful rearing of large octopus hatchlings on a wholly artificial diet of squid
paste, are highlighted, as are areas requiring further research; for example, there is
a need to understand better the nutritional requirements of planktonic hatchlings so
that appropriately enriched zooplankton can be raised as prey items.
Additional economic benefits of cephalopod culture are also emphasised. These
include restocking, as has been successfully achieved for octopus in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan; pharmaceutical exploitation of antibacterial and potential anticancer activities reported from squid ink; the use of modified cuttlebone in tissue
engineering; and the many and varied uses of cuttlefish oil.
In all, this is a pioneering text, which draws together a vast array of knowledge
on cephalopod culture and provides the foundation for future advances in this significant field.
President, Cephalopod International
Dr. Louise Allcock
Advisory Council