RESEARCH NOTE ENERGETIC CONTRIBUTION OF CARBOHYDRATES DURING STARVATION IN COMMON OCTOPUS (OCTOPUS VULGARIS)

Our knowledge of the nutritional requirements of cephalopods is not very advanced and is limited by the poor availability of formulated diets that are both acceptable and nutritional (Cerezo Valverde et al., 2008). Most hypotheses on these requirements are based on the natural diets given to cephalo-pods and on biochemical analyses of these diets and the animals themselves (Garcı́a Garcı́a & Cerezo Valverde, 2006), on the intake of labelled nutrients (O’Dor et al., 1984) or on starvation experiments (Castro, Garrido & Sotelo, 1992). From such experiments it has been deduced that cephalopods are exclusively carnivorous and, contrary to what happens with proteins, that they rarely use carbohydrates (CH) or lipids as an energy source (Lee, 1994). However, it has been found that cephalopods do have the capacity to digest, store and use CH, which provides them with energy for anaerobic-burst wor