Ink secretion by the marine snail Aplysia californica enhances its ability to escape from a natural predator

1.	Aplysia californica incorporates toxins and pigments from its red seaweed diet into its body and ink, purportedly as a defense against predation. We tested ink's potential defensive function by assessing the survival of green seaweed-fed (red algal toxin deprived) snails in encounters with a natural predator, the sea anemone Anthopleura xanthogrammica.
2.	Red seaweed-fed Aplysia secreted copious amounts of ink when ensnared in anemone tentacles. A similar amount of ink applied to inkless (green-fed) snails as they were engulfed by an anemone enhanced their survival [71% survived (ink) vs 7% (seawater control)]. Ink caused anemones to reject whitefish (a familiar food) [50% rejected (ink) vs 10% (seawater control)], triggering gastrovascular eversions, which ejected ink as well as prey from their digestive cavities. Snails with only a passive chemical defense (algal toxins, no ink) escaped less often than snails with only an active chemical defense (ink, no red algal toxins) (20% survived vs 71%) and about as often as red algal toxin deprived snails (20% vs 12%). Snails avoided ink by chemical orientation, thus avoiding potential sites of ongoing predation.
3.	The survival value of ink and the snail's aversion to it supports ink's proposed anti-predator function.