1. Foraging for Food: Movement to Satisfy Hunger
- Essentials of Feeding
- Animals move to find nutrients not immediately available in their current habitat.
- Predators stalk or chase prey, herbivores wander or migrate in search of fresh vegetation.
- Bees flying from flower to flower to collect nectar and pollen (critical for pollination).
- Wildebeests migrating across the African savannah to access lush grasslands.
Remember that foraging strategies often depend on the type of food an organism consumes, predators move to hunt, while herbivores move to graze or browse.
2. Escaping from Danger: Locomotion as a Survival Mechanism
- Avoiding Predators and Hazards
- Locomotion enables rapid evasion of threats, including predators or natural disasters.
- Speed and agility can confuse predators or allow prey to reach safety.
Springboks in southern Africa rely on high-speed running (up to 80 km/h) and pronking (leaping) to elude cheetahs and alert nearby springboks.
- Many students assume that only prey animals use locomotion to escape danger.
- Predators also move to avoid larger predators or to retreat from unsuccessful hunts.
