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| Prey With The Best Defence | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 5 2014, 12:52 PM (2,395 Views) | |
| Dynasty Warrior | Jan 5 2014, 12:52 PM Post #1 |
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Heterotrophic Organism
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Hi all, I wanted to talk about herbivorous animals and about what the best defences are when they get attacked. Just vote for what type of defence is the best and talk about the chosen defence and a favourite animal that uses it. I think that horns are the best defence because you can stand and fight and turn the tables on the attacker. Like a rhinoceros or a bovid. |
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| TIKI | Jan 5 2014, 01:19 PM Post #2 |
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Herbivore
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Picked speed, but how do you classify a porcupine? Or what about poisonous colored frogs? Predators have adapted and learned to stay away from said frogs. |
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| Jinfengopteryx | Jan 5 2014, 06:54 PM Post #3 |
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Aspiring paleontologist, science enthusiast and armchair speculative fiction/evolution writer
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IMO, this is relevant here (on the second page, they talk about what makes prey dangerous): http://www.academia.edu/2563176/Dangerous_prey_and_daring_predators_a_review Credit for finding this paper goes to Asadas. |
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| Ausar | Jan 5 2014, 10:32 PM Post #4 |
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Xi-miqa-can! Xi-miqa-can! Xi-miqa-can!
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Size is up there as one of the most effective animal defenses, but a simple, (relatively) small size advantage won't cut it; the size discrepancy either needs to be extreme (e.g. elephants vs. lions) or perhaps the prey need only be so large in absolute terms that the effects of the square cube law require less of a size advantage relative even to predators that themselves are colossal. Think the largest sauropods against the largest theropods (where the size discrepancy is at least 10:1 in the sauropod's favor); even then, I'm convinced a sufficiently large pack of the latter (equivalent to the weight of the prey itself; Earle, 1987) could have brought one down.
Edited by Ausar, Feb 13 2018, 11:37 PM.
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| Taipan | Feb 8 2014, 02:20 PM Post #5 |
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Administrator
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Social or stinky? New study reveals how animal defenses evolve Date: February 7, 2014 Source: University of California - Davis Summary: Some animals are "eww" while others are "aww." Why do some animals use stinking secretions for defense, while others are social? In a new study, researchers found that noxious spraying was favored by animals that were nocturnal and mostly at risk from other animals, while sociality was favored by animals that were active during the day and potentially vulnerable to birds of prey. ![]() Skunk. When people see a skunk, the reaction usually is "Eww," but when they see a group of meerkats peering around, they often think "Aww." Why some animals use noxious scents while others live in social groups to defend themselves against predators is the question that biologists Tim Caro of the University of California, Davis and Theodore Stankowich of California State University, Long Beach and sought to answer through a comprehensive analysis of predator-prey interactions among carnivorous mammals and birds of prey. Their findings appear in the online edition of the journal Evolution. "The idea is that we're trying to explain why certain antipredator traits evolved in some species but not others," said Stankowich, who noted that this study not only explains why skunks are stinky and why banded mongooses live in groups but also breaks new ground in the methodology of estimating predation risks. Caro, Stankowich and Paul Haverkamp, a geographer who recently completed his Ph.D. at UC Davis, collected data on 181 species of carnivores, a group in which many species are small and under threat from other animals. They ran a comparison of every possible predator-prey combination, correcting for a variety of natural history factors, to create a potential risk value that estimates the strength of natural selection due to predation from birds and other mammals. They found that noxious spraying was favored by animals that were nocturnal and mostly at risk from other animals, while sociality was favored by animals that were active during the day and potentially vulnerable to birds of prey. "Spraying is a good close-range defense in case you get surprised by a predator, so at night when you can't detect things far away, you might be more likely to stumble upon a predator," Stankowich said. Conversely, small carnivores like mongooses and meerkats usually are active during the day which puts them at risk from birds of prey. Living in a large social group means "more eyes on the sky" in daytime, when threats can be detected further away. The social animals also use other defenses such as calling out a warning to other members of their group or even mobbing together to bite and scratch an intruder to drive it away. The project was a major information technology undertaking involving plotting the geographic range overlap of hundreds of mammal and bird species, but will have long-term benefits for ongoing studies. The researchers plan to make their database, nicknamed the "Geography of Fear," available to other researchers. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140207151321.htm Journal Reference: Theodore Stankowich, Paul J. Haverkamp, Tim Caro. ECOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF ANTIPREDATOR DEFENSES IN CARNIVORES. Evolution, 2014; DOI: 10.1111/evo.12356 Abstract Mammals have evolved several morphological and behavioral adaptations to reduce the risk of predation, but we know little about the ecological factors that favor their evolution. For example, some mammalian carnivores have the ability to spray noxious anal secretions in defense, whereas other species lack such weaponry but may instead rely on collective vigilance characteristic of cohesive social groups. Using extensive natural history data on 181 species in the Order Carnivora, we created a new estimate of potential predation risk from mammals and birds-of-prey and used comparative phylogenetic methods to assess how different sources of predation risk and other ecological variables influence the evolution of either noxious weaponry or sociality in this taxon. We demonstrate that the evolution of enhanced spraying ability is favored by increased predation risk from other mammals and by nocturnality, but the evolution of sociality is favored by increased predation risk from birds-of-prey and by diurnality, which may allow for enhanced early visual detection. These results suggest that noxious defenses and sociality are alternative antipredator strategies targeting different predator guilds under different lighting conditions. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/evo.12356/abstract;jsessionid=F38A339D12149B391309CFE581769136.f02t02 Edited by Taipan, Feb 13 2018, 07:18 PM.
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| Honey Badger | Feb 9 2014, 10:04 AM Post #6 |
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Ur ready 4 Freddy, butt f*cked bi Foxy
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I could say a skunk, dogs have actually died from getting sprayed so bad. |
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| DarkGricer | Feb 9 2014, 10:28 AM Post #7 |
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Omnivore
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I voted for size. Horns, spikes, armor, ect may make fighting back easy, but size can make something practically immune from attack, or at least more so then any other weapon. |
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| Mesopredator | Feb 13 2018, 05:40 PM Post #8 |
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Disaster taxa
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Defense depends on what you are being preyed at. I think defense has several layers; like, it occurs at a behavioral level and a physical level - which really is the same. Whatever defense works or not depends again on the environment. It is possible that certain herbivores are better adapted to deal with different predators. Proghorns have evolved great endurance and speed; it is a bit pointless now without the American cheetah. So I'm imagining that selection is relaxed on that trait with proghorns; and that different predators now impose selection upon the proghorn. Defense is context and situational dependent. We see from non-native species that new predation can go hard on species without the proper defenses. Or think of our ancestors, they were such great hunters that - together with the possiblity of climate change - many large herbivores went extinct. Many of these large herbivores had great defenses; think of the ground sloths, the giant armadillos, mammoths and hairy rhinos. Great predators went extinct too; Haast eagles, cave lions, dire wolves and thylacoleo. I think we'll see new uses of past defenses too, evolutionary biologist Gould calls them exaptation. My favorite defense is behavioral flexibility, and flexibility in general. I like those stories by hunters in which they hunt and through the hunt they get more and more respect for their prey. I think the most honourable hunt is one which is the most fair. |
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| Taipan | Feb 13 2018, 07:19 PM Post #9 |
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Aggressive attitude/behaviour can be a great defence eg. Badgers. |
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| Grazier | Feb 13 2018, 08:54 PM Post #10 |
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Omnivore
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Sheer size. Rhinos, hippos and elephants basically cheat coded the predator/prey game and don't even play anymore. |
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| K9 Bite | Feb 14 2018, 01:52 AM Post #11 |
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Herbivore
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Grazier, do you watch TeirZoo on youtube by any chance? And that's not entirely true.....at least for the most part. Every now and then, Lions score a kill on elephants. But sheer size seems to be a great defense...the largest land carnivore, the polar bear, struggles and often fails to secure a walrus due to it's sheer bulk.
Edited by K9 Bite, Feb 14 2018, 01:54 AM.
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| Mammuthus | Feb 14 2018, 03:00 AM Post #12 |
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Proboscidean Enthusiast
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There’s are reason healthy Rhinos, Hippos and Elephants rarely get taken on by predators. I voted for sheer size. |
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| Hawk | Feb 16 2018, 06:52 AM Post #13 |
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Unicellular Organism
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A Cape Buffalos main defense is it’s size. By the time they grow to their prime size the only animals that hunt healthy adult buffalos are lions(they are unsuccessful most of the time). Wildebeestes and Gazelles have horns without the size of a bovid and they still get hunted by small predators like African Wild Dogs and Hyenas. The vid below is a compilation of buffalos making big predators like lions and crocodiles fly. It even has footage of a Buffalo squaring with a rhino https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8fRWzAVALNI |
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| Mauro20 | Feb 16 2018, 10:03 AM Post #14 |
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Badass
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Critters like electric eels or electric catfish can also be very hard to prey on. |
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| Jinfengopteryx | Feb 16 2018, 11:57 PM Post #15 |
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Aspiring paleontologist, science enthusiast and armchair speculative fiction/evolution writer
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Thinking about it, I'd also pick size. Whenever I think of animals on the "no natural predators list", whatever comes to my mind tends to be huge. |
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