![]() The animal coils its body for speed and power, then strikes without hesitation or fear. Its long, flexible neck enhances its attacks. When an enemy is within range, the crane will slap with its wings and stomp with its feet, thereby creating openings for impeccably timed beak strikes. Since sharks enter a state of paralysis when upside down, the whales grab the shark and flip it over, turning a deadly enemy into an easy dinner. When an unsuspecting insect walks nearby, the spider reaches out and pulls it into the tunnel to eat.Īfter driving a shark towards the surface, killer whales stun it with a swift smack. The trap-door spider hides in a tunnel behind a camouflaged door of twigs and leaves. When the snake flicks its tail, the fish swims straight into its mouth. The tentacled water snake positions itself with its tail on one side of a fish and its head on the other. Wielding the fastest punch in the animal kingdom‚ its clubbed arms reach speeds of 50 mph‚ the mantis shrimp maims its prey with only a few blows.įish reflexively turn and swim in the opposite direction when they sense a disturbance in the water. ![]() Grabs a mountain goat by the leg and pulls it off the cliff to its death To knock insects on low-hanging leaves into the water, the archer fish shoots them with a precisely aimed fountain of spit, then swims over to retrieve the new meal. Here are a few examples of strange but effective hunting strategies some species have come up with After all, dinner tastes just as good whether you’ve tricked it, tased it, punched it, paralysed it‚ or just spit at it hard enough to knock it over. This lesson is designed for students to deepen their understanding about symbiotic relationships and, most importantly, learn that the removal of a keystone species (the gopher tortoise) affects the entire food web of the habitats in which these inhabitants exist.What can we learn from studying animals hunting/being hunted?Īnimals have come up with hundreds of successful efficient hunting strategies in order to catch their prey, many predators will rely on outrunning, outweighing or out-muscling their prey but there are many ways other than size or speed to get a successful catch. The animal species living in the burrow are known as commensals and include hundreds of invertebrates and vertebrates that would not survive without the burrows these tortoises create. Low growing vegetation is the tortoise's primary diet and depends on open sunny areas. ![]() The fires, in turn, ensure that the canopy is open for plentiful sunlight. More than 350 species depend upon the gopher tortoise burrow for protection from temperature extremes and periodic fires. The gopher tortoise of the southeastern United States is a reptile that creates and lives in a subterranean burrow primarily in dry upland habitats. Folkerts, "The Gopher Tortoise: A Species in Decline" …We must preserve…the gopher tortoise and other species in similar predicaments, for if we do not, we lose a part of our humanity, a part of our habitat, and ultimately our world." - Dr. Efforts to save the gopher tortoise are really a manifestation of our desire to preserve intact, significant pieces of the biosphere. ![]() "…Everything affecting the gopher tortoise's habitat affects the tortoise and … eventually affects all other organisms in its ecosystem.
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