Insect larvae as feed ingredient selectively increase arachidonic acid content in farmed gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata L.)

This work is aimed at obtaining farmed fish designed to contain targeted PUFAs. To this end, an experiment was conducted with farmed specimens of gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata L.), which were fed meal containing different percentages of common green bottle fly (Lucilia sericata Meigen) larvae, cultured on appropriate substrates, and then the fatty acid profiles in fish muscles were determined. Results indicate that arachidonic acid content in fish muscle is significantly increased when replacing different proportions of fishmeal by larvae from L. sericata, which contains arachidonic acid up to 10.6% of total fatty acids. Thus, larvae seem to be a suitable vector for introducing target PUFA in fish muscle and it could also contribute to reduce the use of wild fish stocks for fishmeal production.