Week 8 Post 1

Animal Behavior: Feeding Behavior

• Food is necessary for survival
• Some foods are available in large quantities, others in small patches
• Some don't move or are in the same place, some move
• animals all face the same basic challenge of efficiently tracking down and consuming their food
•  two major challenges: finding food items, and then successfully consuming them
• Predators sometimes need to evolve to catch their food easier and more efficiently
• Herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat other animals
• herbivores generally eat immobile prey, while carnivores eat mobile prey
• herbivores rarely struggle to find and identify food items
• plants may have physical or chemical defenses
• Animals find food by detecting cues using their senses
• Animal senses include sight, hearing, smell, and touch
• Some animals detect vibrations
• Some can detect electric fields or heat
• Common strategy for predators is to focus on a cue that is very difficult to hide
• Search image - visually distinctive indicators of a specific prey item that can be discriminated from the background