LEARNED OLFACTORY DISCRIMINATION VERSUS INNATE TASTE RESPONSES TO AMINO-ACIDS IN CHANNEL CATFISH (ICTALURUS-PUNCTATUS)

Intact channel catfish conditioned to the L-amino acids, proline, argi nine, alanine, and lysine, discriminated these stimuli from all other amino acids tested. Behavioral structure-activity tests indicated that L-pipecolate was the only effective agonist of the L-proline conditio ned response. For channel catfish in which one of the paired olfactory organs was surgically removed, the number of turns to the conditioned stimulus was 40% fewer than those of intact catfish; however, these s emiosmic channel catfish discriminated the conditioned from nonconditi oned stimuli, as evidenced by their responding to the conditioned amin o acid, with a two- to threefold greater number of turns than to the n onconditioned amino acids. irrespective of the number of conditioning trials attempted, catfish with both olfactory organs removed were unab le to discriminate the conditioned from the nonconditioned stimuli.