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The linkages between predator to prey are coloured according to predator group origin, and loops indicate within-group feeding. The thickness of the lines or edges connecting food web components is scaled to the log of the number of unique ROV feeding observations across the years 1991–2016 between the two groups of animals.
The phenomenon may be advantageous for a number of reasons, most typically to access food and to avoid predators. [8] It is triggered by various stimuli, the most prominent being changes in light-intensity, [ 8 ] though evidence suggests that biological clocks are an underlying stimulus as well. [ 9 ]
Cyclothone falls in the middle of the food web, and its main predators are slightly larger deep-sea fishes, such as dragonfish and fangtooths. [2] One adaptation that could lend a clue to our understanding of predator avoidance strategies in Cyclothone has to do with their bioluminescence. In the midwater region of the deep sea, predators ...
Anti-predator adaptation in action: the kitefin shark (a–c) and the Atlantic wreckfish (d–f) attempt to prey on hagfishes. First, the predators approach their potential prey. Predators bite or try to swallow the hagfishes, but the hagfishes have already projected jets of slime (arrows) into the predators' mouths.
A more common avoidance strategy is to become active at night and remain hidden during the day to avoid visual predators. Most larvae and plankton undertake diel vertical migrations between deeper waters with less light and fewer predators during the day and shallow waters in the photic zone at night, where microalgae is abundant. [11]
A study in Plymouth Sound suggests an initial growth reaching up to 14 mm (1 ⁄ 2 in) in height December the first year, and 17.4 mm (5 ⁄ 8 in) by the end of the second year. Females seem to grow more rapidly than males, and in specimens above 25 mm (1 in) in height, females seem to dominate. [ 10 ]
Morphologically, many mollusks (such as limpets and chitons) have low-profile, hydrodynamic shells. Types of substrate attachments include mussels' tethering byssal threads and glues, sea stars ' thousands of suctioning tube feet, and isopods' hook-like appendages that help them hold on to intertidal kelps.
However, most of other researchers do not agree that Nectocaris actually being a cephalopod or even mollusk. [139] [140] Early cephalopods were likely predators near the top of the food chain. [24] After the late Cambrian extinction led to the disappearance of many Radiodonts, predatory niches became available for other animals. [141]