Starved lobsters attack sea hares (who learn from the experience!)

Lobsters eat everything.  Maybe sensitization helps protect a once-attacked sea-hare from a second attack. 

But here’s the thing.  If you bring in a lobster from the field into the lab, and present it with a sea hare, it just bats it away.  Sea hares don’t taste good; lobster isn’t interested. 

BUT if you withhold food from a lobster for 4-8 weeks, then it WILL attack a sea hare.  Charles Derby in Atlanta was the first to do this to study inking behavior on the part of the sea hare.  My students and I started doing the same thing, in order to cause sensitization.  Two years ago, we found that attack by a hungry lobster DOES cause sensitization, just like the sensitization caused by electric shock.  Furthermore, last summer some other students and I found that the neural changes that underlie sensitization caused by electric shock are identical to those caused by lobster attack.  We are starting down the path of understanding how sea hares use their learning in nature.