How Do Animals Protect Themselves From Predators

How animals defend themselves

A Texas horned lizard tin spray blood out of its optics to protect itself. (LM Otero/AP)

Final month, I wrote an article on how animals continue themselves clean. Although the methods varied among species, cleanliness is an important survival technique for predator and prey alike.

Given the response to the article, I thought I'd do a sequel.

Nigh animals employ defence mechanisms that are well known, including:

● having eyes on the side of the head to see predators more than easily

● playing dead if a predator approaches

● using camouflage to blend into the groundwork

Some animals have evolved unique defenses to avoid becoming someone else'south dinner. Here are a few of them.

Skipper caterpillar. This wily invertebrate tin can shoot poop pellets 5 feet through the air! This is the equivalent to your 6-human foot-tall father throwing a ball 240 anxiety. Scientists recollect skipper caterpillars do this when threatened because wasps are attracted to the odour of their debris. The flying turds send the wasps on a wild goose hunt thereby giving the caterpillar time to get away.

Horned lizard. There are fifteen species of horned lizards in North America. Four of them take the ability to squirt claret out of their eyes when threatened. During an attack, the lizard is able to reduce the flow of blood to the balance of the body. This increases the pressure level in tiny claret vessels near the eye, causing them to outburst and spewing a stream of claret upwards to v anxiety from the body. In addition to confusing a predator, the blood tastes awful. (Not that I've actually tasted it!)

Malaysian ant. Similar other ants, a Malaysian pismire colony consists of many players: the queen, workers, soldiers and drones (the queen's mates). If a colony is threatened, it is a soldier's job to defend its comrades. The Malaysian soldier pismire has a cloak-and-dagger weapon — large glands full of poison. Notwithstanding, the soldier does not seize with teeth his adversaries. Instead, he volition scurry away from the colony with the enemy in fast pursuit. Once surrounded, the pismire contracts its abdomen, causing the glands to explode and spraying poison in all directions. The bad news for the soldier emmet? It dies after releasing the poison.

Hairy frog. Because they're amphibians, frogs practise not have pilus. This five-inch frog got its name considering of hairlike projections that are present on the trunk and thighs of breeding males. The hairy frog is found in Central Africa, but information technology isn't the fauna's "hair" that is used for defense. If the creature is threatened, it deliberately breaks its toe bones and forces the sharp bones through the peel. Scientists don't know if the makeshift claws are used for fighting or to requite the frog more traction for fleeing to safe.

— Howard Bennett

Bennett, a Washington pediatrician, is the writer of "Max Archer, Kid Detective: The Case of the Wet Bed."

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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/how-animals-defend-themselves/2011/11/03/gIQA7nZECN_story.html

Posted by: browncritheing.blogspot.com