the extremely specific nature of nutritional relations between 

 predators and their prey. The same arguments, of course, apply to 

 behavioral and morphological defense or capturing mechanisms. On 

 the other hand, if prey individuals are widely dispersed or unpre- 

 dictable in space or time, then a specialist would have problems 

 maintaining a positive energy budget in the temporary absence of 

 the specific prey. The diet should be broad enough to assure that 

 a sufficient supply of prey are present during the predators' 

 active periods. 



The environments of coral reefs are generally thought to be cli- 

 matically stable (Wells, 1957). If a prey species is common and, 

 more importantly, consistently present, then one would predict 

 that the predator should tend to specialize upon it. Furthermore, 

 a prey which is consistently present must rely on complex (or 

 specific) escape or defense responses (e.g., Bakus, 1970), requiring 

 a correspondingly complex (or specific) capturing mechanism on the 

 part of the predator, which would favor specialization. One would 

 generally expect to find more restricted diets in tropical preda- 

 tors of common prey. Yet predators which accept a variety of com- 

 mon prey species are not unusual in the tropics. However, it is 

 not clear whether these populations of species with generalized 

 diets consist of individuals with equally generalized diets or if they 

 consist of individuals with a preferred diet, each on a different 

 organism. 



The flamingo tongue, Cyphoma gibbosum Linnaeus, is a particularly 

 promising species with which to investigate this problem. Cyphoma 

 is much smaller than its prey, to the extent that it would appear 

 conceivable for an individual to spend much of its life on a single 

 prey individual. Even if Cyphoma attacked many prey in its life- 

 time, the time period spent on a single prey may be great enough 

 relative to the time spent in hunting that an increased feeding 

 efficiency would warrant passing by other potential prey species. 



Thus we wished to find whether Cyphoma gibbosum has marked feeding 

 preferences among gorgonaceans, whether individual preferences always 

 reflect general preferences of the species, whether individual 

 preferences are influenced or determined by past experience and 

 whether Cyphoma seriously damages its prey before leaving it. 



EQUIPMENT 



Vernier calipers were used to measure the area of gorgonacean tissue 

 removed by Cyphoma each day. Certain Cyphoma were tagged by placing 

 spots of Sea Coin' Poxy Putty in a distinctive pattern on the back 

 of the shell. Field notes were recorded on sheets of plastic. 



VI-59 



