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In ecology, crypsis is the ability of an animal or a plant [1] to avoid observation or detection by other animals. It may be a predation strategy or an antipredator adaptation . Methods include camouflage , nocturnality , subterranean lifestyle and mimicry .
Predation risk has long been recognized as critical in shaping behavioral decisions. For example, this predation risk is of prime importance in determining the time of evening emergence in echolocating bats. Although early access during brighter times permits easier foraging, it also leads to a higher predation risk from bat hawks and bat falcons.
Leafy sea dragon avoids recognition by predators, with alga-like coloration, protuberances and behaviour. Underwater camouflage is the set of methods of achieving crypsis—avoidance of observation—that allows otherwise visible aquatic organisms to remain unnoticed by other organisms such as predators or prey.
A wide range of animals, e.g. lizards, birds, rodents, and sharks, behave as if dead as an anti-predator adaptation, as predators usually take only live prey. [ 15 ] In beetles, artificial selection experiments have shown that there is heritable variation for length of death-feigning.
Predators need not locate their host directly: Kestrels, for instance, are able to detect the faeces and urine of their prey (which reflect ultraviolet), allowing them to identify areas where there are large numbers of voles, for example. This adaptation is essential in prey detection, as voles are quick to hide from such predators.
It is the basis of camouflage in both predators and prey. [18] It is used alongside other forms of camouflage including colour matching and disruptive coloration. [ 18 ] Among predatory fish, the gray snapper , Lutianus griseus , is effectively flattened by its countershading, while it hunts an "almost invisible" prey, the hardhead silverside ...
Many predators forage most intensively at night, whereas others are active at midday and see best in full sun. The crepuscular habit may both reduce predation pressure, increasing the crepuscular populations, and offer better foraging opportunities to predators that increasingly focus their attention on crepuscular prey until a new balance is ...
Tonic immobility occurs after the predator has detected and or made contact with the prey, and is likely used to prevent further attack by the predator or consumption of the prey. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Because tonic immobility occurs later in the predator attack sequence, it is considered a secondary defense mechanism and is therefore distinct from freezing.