Cuttlefish favour their current need to hide rather than their future need for food.

Abstract

Episodic memory and future thinking are generally considered as two parts of the same mental time travelling system in vertebrates. Modern cephalopods, with their independent evolutionary lineage and their complex cognitive abilities, appear as promising species to determine whether these abilities have separate evolutionary histories or not. In our study, we tested future-planning abilities in a cephalopod species which has been shown to possess episodic-like memory abilities: the common cuttlefish. They were tested on their ability to plan for a future need for food instead of following their current need to hide. To explore the flexibility in such future-planning behaviour, we varied the protective value of the shelter. No future-planning behaviour was observed in cuttlefish during our experiment regardless of the value of the shelter provided. From one perspective, as cuttlefish were facing a trade-off decision, the attractiveness of the shelter (to satisfy their current need) might have been of higher value than their future need to eat (low drive for food). By contrast, our results might reflect an inability of cuttlefish to act in the present to secure future needs, suggesting that episodic memory and future planning might be distinct cognitive traits with their own evolutionary histories. Identifying both similarities and differences in complex cognition between vertebrate species and cephalopods is important to pinpoint which evolutionary pressures have led to the emergence of complex cognitive abilities.