Under the Animal Welfare Act as amended on 18 December 2007, experiments on cephalopods and decapods are notifiable, but - unlike experiments on vertebrates - they do not require approval. Experiments on other invertebrate animals do not require any declaration.

This double standard (vertebrates - invertebrates) evidently goes back to the conception that invertebrate animals have no, or at least only a reduced capacity to feel pain and are therefore to a lesser extent deserving of protection.

Nowadays, the view prevails that at least some invertebrate animals have a sense of pain which is comparable to that of vertebrate animals. Cephalopods, in particular, are considered highly developed in this respect.

In the Laboratory Animals Directive of the EU (2010/63/EU), reissued in 2010, these conclusions are taken into consideration by explicitly including cephalopods in the scope of the directive.