Tetracycline Immersion Tagging of Cuttlefish,Sepiella japonica,Larvae

This paper describes the results of tetracycline immersion as a means to tag Sepiella japonica larvae, as well as the toxicity of this approach. The purpose of this study was to differentiate wild and artificially bred cuttlefish using tetracycline marking. We studied the effects of tetracycline immersion and marking on cuttlefish larvae with mantle length of 0.45–0.8 cm. To use the optimum concentration of tetracycline for tagging, the toxicity of tetracycline immersion was determined prior to the tagging experiments. All the cuttlebones were successfully marked in yellow and the tag was clearly visible without any assistive tools after the beginning of the experiment. A positive correlation was found between immersion time and depth of tag color. We conclude that tetracycline immersion marking is an effective mass‐tagging method for S. japonica.