Animal behaviour

A review of thanatosis (death feigning) as an anti-predator behaviour

Death feigning works chiefly by exploiting predator behaviour — many predators lose interest in motionless prey, release it, or delay handling — and duration is adjusted to circumstances rather than fixed.

Sensory Ecology, Behaviour, and Evolution

Sensory systems are shaped by the physics of the environment and by the specific tasks an animal performs, and no sensory system is general-purpose: sensitivity in one dimension is routinely traded against resolution, speed or energy in another.

Nonlinear effects of group size on the success of wolves hunting elk

Hunting success rose sharply from one to about four wolves and then levelled off, with additional wolves adding little.

Predatory fish select for coordinated collective motion in virtual prey

Selection by real predators drove the virtual prey towards greater attraction and alignment, producing coordinated collective motion.

Predator cognition permits imperfect coral snake mimicry

Replicas that resembled the model only approximately were attacked no more often than accurate mimics, provided they shared the key features predators appear to generalise over.

Animal camouflage: current issues and new perspectives

Camouflage mechanisms differ in which stage of visual processing they defeat.

To cut a long tail short: a review of lizard caudal autotomy studies carried out over the last 20 years

Tail loss carries measurable costs: reduced sprint and climbing performance, loss of stored fat, slower growth, reduced reproductive output and lowered social status in several species.

The costs of autotomy and regeneration in animals: a review and framework for future research

Autotomy costs recur across very distant groups: impaired locomotion or feeding, energetic expense of regeneration, reduced growth and reproduction, and altered social or competitive standing.

Image scoring and cooperation in a cleaner fish mutualism

Cleaners behaved more cooperatively — taking parasites rather than mucus — when an observing client was present, and clients preferred to approach cleaners they had observed behaving cooperatively.

Disruptive coloration and background pattern matching

Targets with pattern elements touching the outline survived significantly better than targets with the same elements placed internally, even though both matched the background equally well.

The complex business of survival by aposematism

Aposematism depends on predator psychology rather than on the signal alone.

Is death-feigning adaptive? Heritable variation in fitness difference of death-feigning behaviour

Death-feigning duration responded to selection, confirming it is heritable, and beetles from the long-duration line survived spider attacks significantly better than those from the short-duration line.

Cooperative hunting in wild chimpanzees

Taï chimpanzees hunted in complementary roles, success increased with the number of hunters well beyond the point seen in other populations, and meat was preferentially shared with those who participated.

Cooperative hunting in lions: the role of the individual

Individual lionesses occupied consistent positions across hunts — some habitually took wing positions and drove prey, others habitually took centre positions and waited — and hunts in which individuals occupied their preferred positions were more successful.

Behavioral decisions made under the risk of predation: a review and prospectus

Prey animals adjust habitat use, group size, vigilance, activity timing and feeding rate in response to predation risk, and these adjustments have measurable costs even when no predator ever attacks.

The evolution of cooperative hunting

Group hunting is frequently stable not because the group is more efficient but because a non-participant would still obtain a share, and cooperation in the strict sense — where individuals do better by coordinating than by hunting alone — is harder to demonstrate than group hunting itself.

Oddity and the confusion effect in predation

Bass capture success fell sharply as shoal size increased, and rose again when odd-looking individuals were present.

Evolutionary aspects of tail shedding in lizards and their relatives

Caudal autotomy occurs at preformed fracture planes within vertebrae, has been lost repeatedly in lineages where the tail serves other important functions, and its distribution tracks the balance between escape benefit and the tail’s other uses.

Cultural transmission of enemy recognition: one function of mobbing

Observer birds began mobbing the harmless object, and passed that response on to further birds through a chain of several individuals, with the acquired response persisting through the transmission chain.

The adaptive significance of avian mobbing

Mobbing serves several non-exclusive functions, and the balance differs by species and context.

Geometry for the selfish herd

Individuals reducing their personal risk by moving towards others produce an aggregated group as a by-product.

The components of predation as revealed by a study of small-mammal predation of the European pine sawfly

The number of prey taken rises with prey density and then levels off, because every capture consumes handling time that cannot be spent searching.

Experimental studies of mimicry in some North American butterflies

Birds that had experienced the unpalatable model subsequently rejected the palatable mimic on sight, while birds without that experience ate it readily.