ANIMALWATCHING A Field Guide to Animal Behaviour DESMOND MORRISor La Sut Preapner fan Crate metre Rescrher Doc Retweson ‘Ariss Bors Lind 2e Nauntall dpe Road London sy 20 ‘An mpent f Rardom sen omlog Mtn Sic. Avchlard Johnson apres henge wold iw putin Creat Haare by Honan ape {Siamemd Mores H998 The np of Deseo Moers {svc ty am av avcotnce with he Capri ‘Degman Patents Act np Thin hook hs sbyct he common thar sal ty ay ke scare wat! he rable fret cto any mc ingen tha otc publica art vt sama ese i ahs {Condon fea npn the sumer prc Ferihpoutn Rennie uc are aes ra Picture Credits aula ppsteensre. U2 upp. 1M upper eenine ain! loge Kel 23F uppers 297 appar 21 M6 dink pp Sitower, 6.) upper. 1X upper meht teweer et ata right 22 tower, 26 hoes 6,2 leer left. Supper. 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Ses upper 236 hiwer 217 upper et Toms Stone p91 Zeta Panae Tbe upper ar howe fight 1S'138. 197 uppet Zann Operaians Ud Py U fast eaght, lower feb Assur Une 1lmer it 1Introduction: The Animal-wateher 7 iia tore Contents How to ask questions about animals Grouping Behaviour 17 How animals organise themselves into social groups Escape Behaviour 27 How animals cleteat their predtors by freezing. fleeing, i orig Protective Armour 34 How animals cover themselves in protective shells sealesand spines Camouflage 45 How prey conceal themselves Irom their predators. and predators trom their prey Warning Signals 52 How poisonous animals warn others not to touch then Chemical Defence 59 How some species employ ehemieal weapons Deftection Displays 69 How some animals deflect the enemy’s attack away from vital organs Startle Displays 74 How harnafess animals blutl th them Death-feigning 79 How some animals avoid death by weting like a corpse Self-mutilation 83 How some sinimals save their lives hy sacrificing parts of their bodies Distraction Displays 86 How some parents draw the ay from their young Mobbing 90 ¢ prey defeat their predators by ganging up tention of atiackers Food-findin, How animals hunt, seavenge and forage Luring Behaviour 105 ¢ predittors set ain anabush with an atiractive Food-preparation 109 How aninnats set about shelling, plucking aud cleaning their food hefore eating Food-storage 112 How animals hoard surplus food Mutual Aid 119 How pains of animals trom different species share their fives to mutual advantageDrinking Behaviour 128 Hav some animals do drink find and swatltow their water Canni how those that ism 135 imals attack and devour members of their own ing 140 employ implements when feeding or Behaviour 147 How animatls react when they experience two, contradictory urges at the same time 1 Ambivalent Actions, 2 Intention Movements 3. Redirected Activities 4. Displacement Activities 6 Re-motivating Actions Cabot! 7 Autonomic Signals ‘Typical Intensity 159 Many certain actions become better signals by 163 How changes in expression have evolved ay special Signalling systems, Fighting Behaviour 174 How annals defend territories. establish social Inictarchies. perform threat slispkays ancl. it hist resort, indulge in physteal combat Submissive Behaviour 182 How beaten animes attempt to appease their dominant companions or rivatls Courtship Displays 185 How a their sextall exeitement als arouse one another and synchronise Arena Displays 194 animals clear a special area on which to courtship dispkays. Mating Behaviour 202 How animals ensure physical contact between their cays and their sperm Nesting Bebayiour 211 How ctnimals construct a protective home in which to Parental Care 219 How young animals ate cleaned. Fed. transported sind protected by their parents Play Behaviour 230 How young sand social ply nimmals 1 acrobatic, investigatory jour 235 als care Hor the body surface by Cleaning Bel How a thing in mud. water. sind. dust ants, smoke and the sun Sleeping Behaviour 244 How animals immobulise themselves at regular intervals and switeh off the esternal workd References 251 Index 254A its. died ey tie hereon my hands of et imal at home athe wld animals inthe Walshe 1 to think like ied with them so countryside. 1 spent so much time with them that be them. to sce the world from their point of view. Tiden strongly that I began to see humans who hunted animals as the enemy. At the time this wasan unfashionableatitude. Hunting-shooting-and-tishing was the norm. In the British countryside where I wandered. everyone did y of ite, But trom Ly age. for some reason. H rebelled. 1 eferred foxes to Foxhounds. 1 found wildfow! ing than wildfovlers ers with their sharp hooks and their lack to the fish they plucked se of unde fof what they were doin gleefully from their wet world into our dey one, Above il | wanted to understand the world of animals. There wer many mysteries and it was hard to know how or where to begin, [tried to getclover to them, | discovered that sitting very still for as long as possible was the first great secret. Most people. [ noticed, even experienced naturalists, were forever striding through the undergrowth. striking out it mple strategy of Waiting for nature to come to You. rather than going clumsily to look for tt When Picasso was asked how he pa find” Already. in my childhood. this h animals. When you walk into st wood or a field. you akarm eversthing that lives there. The moving human body is karge. obtrusive and highly visible. But sit down quietly and. after a while, you become invisible. Nature resumes its activities. the patterns of behaviour you disrupted by your med. he replied. “Ido not seek. 1 J become my way of studying wal, This is true whether you are in a desert or a forest or swimming on. coral reet When Iw drums. 1 ha platto making saw a giant pike. fyin young roach approached it unawares. sensed its presence loved ranks safety in numbers before darti {1 wayalready beginning mentally to enter their workd and to feel Ubuilt myselfa raft from old planksand oil- wall Lake and, lying flat on its wooden alt de h the mirror-smooth surface | lurking U-boat. A shoal of pressed my face close to the water. Thy bro ed very slowly rho disturbance, sind th p wait for its prey like immediately aff. L was s0 close to the nats as my desma, we hall a century at ready close enough to the aquatic workd for it to 1. before the invention of the UT wits obsession. It did not replice my fascination for mammals. birds and reptiles. Ht simply gave my study another dimension, My appetite for learning about sill animals. simple or complex. was. Insatiable. Inevitably 1 wits destined to become a zoologist in later life. The great problem I faced. when 1 eventually obtained my degr zoology wats thal loconvert my childhood fascination into an adult career F would have to carry out experiments on sinimals. Zoology was in an intensely experimental, kiborstory-oriented phase. and this did not appeat pimals in that way. In my mind f Twas going to matke a livi nis. Itlooked very much ats tome. | wassimply not pre} und there was, painful exp though would have fo find some other career Just as I was about to give up zoology. L was lucky enough to attend a lecture by the great cthologist Niko Tinbergen. [had no idea what ethology was. but I seon found out. Iwas the naturalistic study of animal Tinbergen demonstrated that it was possible. simply. by mimals, to nike a scientilic study of them, By making the systematic and analytical. it was possible to carry out field ents on fi Introduction: The Animal- watcherexperiments that reduced interference with the auimatls toa minimum, He demonstrated that it was possible to convert amateur natural histery into professional zoology by the straightforward device of quantified observation. lation. It meant that, by carefully counting and dither J actions in given time periods. 1 could make complicated analyses that helped to unravel the intricate behaviour pattems that existed in so many species. 1 mestnt that instead of guessing that the presence ofa red spot or the flicking ofa tail wats teting asa thre signal or a courtship display. L gould set about proving it, There was no looking back. A whole new world of animal study lay open to meand has continued to excite me ever sinee. Alter writing about filly seientilic papers on the subject 1 decided to iy a wider audience and moved into television. where week stfter week | mail world, My earl tried to get across my Fascination For the a ol fish and birds were now extended to mammals sine Hencked up ats curator af the largest collection of mammatian species in the world at Londan Zoo. Th 1 of young research workers. Ewasable to extend my animal bel snot normally available to zoologists. L could work with everything from marmosets to elephants. 1 ame especially interested in aipes sand made st long study of chimpa ees. Has at this point that Leame fice to fice with the realisation that human beings could be studied fike other animal chimpanzees. to investigate the behaviour of this st uaviour studies inte nd E went on, past ure that 1 christened The Naked Ape Happlied the same methods here. watehi people rather than talking toHy new things about the way humany interact, f a hook called Maunrarching and for twenty years a that bi study was hased on my lifetime of them, and 1 fearnt om: published the results is my investiy. Although my Manware hin re species Home sapiens ad never wr AL Tinst f way too huyy writing research reports and ater on had beews npletely engrossed in purely humatn studies. | eventually assumed that, by now. someone else must have written the animal version of Manwareh jugaund recently Hwent to look for it, To my surprise it was not there. There ‘were st number ofexectlent texthooks an the subject but nobody had taken the trouble to present seientilic animal-watteh 1 auulience \ is how the present volume came to be w Instead of providing discussions of t je abstractions | have concentrated on animal behaviour patterns that can be seen and Studied hy any interested person. It helps at great dest to have a large mher af elear, separate concepts. teas that ean quickly and easily be applied to the sometimes confusing variety of animal actions we observe when we sit down to watch other species. 1 have therefore made each chapter short, no more than at few pages. and have picked the most vivid examples The namely that every spol of colour, every st ovement thatt an animal makes, has some spec all these colours and! actions can be understood if they are studied closely enough. Notluing an animal ever does cannot he explained. given sulficient palienceand ingenuity on the part of the animal-watcher. Everything haya reason, every piece of behaviour funetions in some way to improve the chances of survival of the animal concerned. In the end. all animal mysteries can be u each ease student of animal behaviour st ts out with a baste premise, Posture. every tinyTo some romantics this may seem it pity. They would preter to keep the mysteries of mature ay mysterious as possible. They feet everything will be to destroy the beauty of nature, but they are wrong. To: Know that a particular animal chance. or brightly coloured display operates as a territorial device or ay af arousal mechanism does not make it any less beautiful. To understand the funetion of bird-son ing. The romantic refusal 19 analyse ts based 1 to explain sen hot make it any less enehat onal bird of pa Any anim, pethapseven the end-ps reraus bits. For. to the romantic, the y. Healso introduces a d ise iy much more exciting than the humble house spa species that happens to be superficially dull wil be ignored treated, Bul nt of millions of years af complex evolutionary pressures, epertoire of survival 1 the ctholowist, every species is fascinating Every species has its awn intricate behaviour mechanisins and even the se boring species soon become exciting ming when one starts to probe inte their parti behaviour of the ar way of fife, The social sinter sthat ot lespised house sparrow isevery f the bird of paradise to the serious ammat-watcher A final comment on my use of the word “animal”. M, the tenmy “animal” and ‘mammal’, They speak of fish and inse example. as though they are not animals, What they mean, of course. ts that they are not mammals, All fiving things are either plants or amumals, Theamoebi is just ts much an animal ts the elephant, So animal-watching covers everything Lrom microscopic creatures to mammatian giants. But having said this, E must admit that [ have favoured Camiliar species or. at I explaining be ny peuple confuse liar species. There is no point in wviour patterns in tnimals that are extrentely difficult to observe. [have largely emitted the microscopic world. for example, ts few people own microscopes. [ have concentrated on the higher forms of life, extent he Ist. species that ave relatives of they have greater meaning for our own species. We can learn more about ourselves from monkeys than from microbes, and looking around our modern human world itis clear that we need to discover aay much ats we: about ourselves, As | have said before, when writing about human behavieur, we are no more than swollen-headed animals and the sooner we aecept this Fact safer we will be. As risen apes we have come to dominate this small p so ellectively that we are in danger of smothering it ¢ ame many lessons we can learn from other and it is high time we took at fittle while to sit ‘swith which we share the euth, They hive much to teach us mals. to OU great wing ul stare at the other creatun as Thope the following pages will demonstratenot haye delinite answers to many of the most obvious the enormous amount of 1m: I Cuny as a SHOCK to some people to learn that we still do questions about am information we have afready accumulated thers iis a great deal ned and this isoneof the special pleasures oFanimal-watebing. Ther always the feeling that. at aay mement. something may happen that will ew discovery. And no matter how minor that discovery is. there isa peculiar eveitement about understanding some natural phenomenon For the first time, Frequently it is not the ease that we have no Wer to al question rather. we hitve tao many. Fach answer seems to have some merit. but we cannot be certain which is the deli nor insight 10 elarily the problem. Ane itive © observa this. Exeryone knows that the zebra has bold black and white stripes. but why dees it have thent? Whatt function do they serve and how do they help the zebra to survive? And what can we learn by a little earelul zebra watehin The traditional explination is that the stripes set ay camoutl help to break up the shape of the of hungry predators, Despite th sunlight on open grasstind. the zebras are said to he well a broken cover at dawn and dusk. when predators are active a dim. One experienced game tracker claimed that it wats possible to get to ‘within go or 50 yards hefore spotting at zebra under these conditions. and even then it only gave itself away by a small movement such as the swish of ity tail or the sudden turn of ity head. Under identical circumstances antelopes were visible up 1 200 yards awaty This interpretation was accepted For many years but has recently heen challenged IU has been pointed out that the behvivur of zebras simply does not match with this picture of them standing very still in broken cover. Compared with many hoofed animals on the plains of Atrica. they are remarkably mobile and noisy and never attempt to hide in cover On, the contrary. they prefer to Fest in groups out in the open. where they ean use their acute senses fo sean the landscape far tell-tale sounds. scents sind mavements. Their response to danger is to Mee as fist as possible. rather than freeze or bide. In other words. their natural history does not Hit with the exphination that has heen repeated in textbooks tor decade after decade, So some other answer must be sought Certainly a visit to the plains of Africa gives one an immediate pression af how conspicuous the stripes re nd how easy itis to spat st dof zebra in almost any terrain, Perhaps. afterall. they are meant to be If so, why? One explanatio they hi pr iMlusion, Hyon eomy oof black ant white ps reality, they are identical, IC the st outline of the object so that disrupted. For some strange optical reason this makes it look bigeer than it really is and it hats been argued that this illusion would have the efleet of g aun attacking lion misjudge its leap, striking short of the true position of the pres A close scrutiny of films showing fiony killing zebras does not bear this uit, When at fion gets close enough to strike. it ustially does so with great skill and confidence and does not appear to be misealculating its position to the slightest degree. IV zebras escape, it is hecause of their initial alertness, then theit speed.andl finally their stamina. Histhestow ones the young. the old and the sick th simply heeause they are not ov stich as a lion the zebr 1 optical aastriped object with one thett has a different kind ern. they do not appear to be the same size even if iped_ pattern breaks against the contours atte discontinuous. its sh Why does the Zebra have Stripes?Vivid pattern of tes a dazzle effect ngs of Bridget Riley black and white stripes cr father ike the Op At pair and that this ls the attacking predator at close quarters This sa possibilily, Bul in practice there 1s no evidence for it One theory suggests that the stripes act as 2 pecies recognition device The sinped patterns I the thvee species of zebras shown opposite common (top). Grevy's (middle) and mountain (bottom) are not as vanied as might be ‘expected if they were important as species Ssolating mechanisms Seen from the side. they are al fist glance very similar indeed Only an th tump region do the stipes markedly differ Irom species to species This means that when Hecing at speed. each zebra can follow its ow laa quick enough over long A third st ough distance restion is that the black and white stripes dazzle the tien when it gets very close to its prey and make it difficult far the killer to concentrate on its fast-moving vietim. This is the Op Att Principle and iwone who hats stood close toa painting by Bridget Riley will underst why dazzle ean be a problem 10 sensitive eyes. The fines seem 10 shilt shimmer as you look at them and before lang you haves powerful desire look away. anywhere but at the painfully dazzling pattern in front ef you. Tn theory the dazzle exphination makes sense, because the zebra patteming is just about as viviel as it ean be. when seen ait lose quarters, but once again the facts do not support this idea in prtetice. As with siz confusion. there is no evidence that elazzle-conlusion puts off hungry lion which is close enough to experience it Another suggestion is that the stripes confuse the lion by dificult 10 tell where one zebra ends.ind another begins. The herd tends to flee together and the stripes are thought to jumble up the inslivieual shapes ancl make the Mleeing herd ook fike one wreath mass oF black sind white patterning. Since ions always like to isolate ene individual from the here hetore attacking. this theory also makes sense on paper. but reality does not bear it out beeause fions en all too easily single out a lor the Kill Thhis is whart happens during a successful chase. a one inclividual Halls behind or gets separsited in some way tram the rest Perhaps. then. the stripes have nothing to de with detinee against predators, Perhaps a herd of all-grey zebras would Lire no better or worse where killers are concerned. The answer instead may fie within the work of zebras. Could it be that the stripes are intended nat for the eyes af lions but for the One idea that supports this view sees the stripes as a means for the zebra to identity which species it belongs to. There are three main species surviving toclay, Upiin the north of the range there ts the big Grevy's zebra. swith its very fine, narrow stripes. Over the whole of the middle of the ram there is the common zebra, with many focal races sll with big bold stuipes. And down in the highlinds of the south there is the extremely rare mountain zebra. with bold bull more vertically arranged flank stripes, To human experts tis possible to identify exch species ata vkunee, but casual observers a Zebra is just at zebra, and this reflects the weakness of this argument, For if species identification was the Tunetion of the stripes they would have diverged much more in the three cases. Hit wars important for an individual animal to be able to dis h between other zebras, evolution woukl have led the three patterns away from one another greater degree. In fet the apposite seems to have occurred because Grevy’s zebra is in other ways a very different animal from the eommon zebra and it appears that in their stripes the two species have conversed rather than diverged. over a long period of time, It must be sudmitted. however. that there isan exception to thisin the rump region af the zebras markings. There. each of the three species does hatve st very dlllevent and highly distinctive pattern of markings. In the Gesy’s zebra there ist bold black central stripe surrounded by a bleached-out white area, In the common zebra the hold striping continues towsirds the central fine. And in the mountain zebra there is am unusual fine yrid-iron pattern along the central Hing. In these rump dlispktys the general zebra patterning diverges Tar more than on any other part of the hody sind it seems that in this restricted region, at least. species identification is operating. But this cannot. of course. explain the greater similarity in the striping of the rest of eyes of other zebras? the body. The rump region. ay isclear by looking at oth hoafed animals, is the Favoured place for spectes “Ma reason for this, When animals are Hleemg in pane they have th need to “follow the fkig’ of their own species. Keeping the herd t ws of wlentity and there is a good cutest wether,the particuktr scbra pattern? This J that zebras. unlike ant. that helps to cement their friendships. their mecks nist towards one another sid this etuses vertical folds or furrows to be formed. in their Mesh. Because of the way that the two animals stand in rekttion to one another while grooming is going on. it is these vertical lines that are placed slap in front of theit “nearside” eves. AIL the while, ay they 2 they sce a vertical pattern of skin-folds. This striping becomes syn- ‘onymous with social attachment sand is therelore the idea pattern for ¢ with contrasting colours, Once established. the IL over the body. until it reached the condition we evolution to esags pattern could spres know today This th coloured ry could explain the difference between zebras and the pi telopes thal live alongside them, but it fails to give an answer westion of why wild asses and horses kack stripes, The arguments that the desertliving wild asses in northern Affi live in such small sronps that this type of bonding enhancement would not be needed. and! that the northern horses have winter coats that re too shaggy for vivid striping. are somehow unconvincing. There were undoubtedly much larger herds of wild asses in the past and as for bkick and white markings cold-country coats it isonly necessary to look at the shaggy-coated skunks tnd pandas to see that this is really not at problem Another, equiilly ingenious. theory sees the blick and white coats display. not for predators or for fellow zebras but instead For insect pests nsects and other small pests are reluctant to kind on ace. with Hts intensely white and intensely black patehes. The eptical effect disturbs them and they Mit off to bund on some fess vivid pattern elsewhere, In support of this theory isthe Fact sat zebras ane much less likely to suler trom ce than other ey in inseet-earried diseases Iways suffered greatly in . Ordinary domestic horses Arecentexplanat the nism for visual bon pattern is thought t Trtiaierst ie bratl fatal shepattern mply be that they attract more insects tha thas heen argued that over lirge parts 1 problem. so without further is the even more unexpected theory that the black and white striping is essentially a cooling devive. Everyone knows that white clothing is better in the hot stun than black. because the black allows more heat to be absorbed. [tis chaimed that hy having sharply separated black dl white regions of the ary breezes will he created between the black and white zonesaand that these will have gelleet. I ispointed out that the estinet quagga. at zebra with much less striping. came trom the far south of Attica where the climate is cooler and that the northern, stripeless horses also enjoy cooler weather. In other words. the hotter the climate the more striped the equines become, Unfortunately this theory does not stand up too wel either. because the mountain zebrat comes trom the cooler south sind yet has vivid stripes. Also. the wile asses from northern At the hottest pices on earth and their bodies are stubbo Briefly, these are nine theories to explain why ek st survive In se ly stripeless have stripes. Each mmend it and yet each in turn is not totally ould demonstrate more elegantly the faseination there is in studying anamals today. The animal world is full of puzzles hall-solved mysteries of this kind. Every so often t new abservatic made. a new faet discovered and another theory is formulated. Sometimes s completely convincing and all the old ideas ean be thrown away. More often i turns out to have Weaknesses ofits own and many al theory has something wo convincing. Nothi ends up as tomorrow's “special ease ything at oneof them alone is. afterall. the true explanation of the vivid ¢ stripes. Alternatively and more excttingly. perhaps around the corner there lurks tenthexplanation — the true ane at hast, We shall see + that follow [have tried to present the most convineing and accepted explanations ofall the various animal phenomena that are bed there, but while reading them tt is always healthy to keep a open mind, Few cases are quite ay con s the zebras stripes. but there is always the chance that For So's time new information will have been gathered that changes our views thout some aspect of animal lite. I this were not the ease it wa utiful perhaps but boring. And the truth that I insist fave discovered about the animal world is that it is never. ever boring.WON Hur Gt forms of life, cach spec A tenses inom mt tis: Some animals are solitary. living on personally defended lertitories where no other member of their species is permitted to enter. They only velinguish this extreme form of isolation for a brief coming together of the sexes during the breeding season and then return to their separate lives once more. Other anions pauir for life. but never congee A pair of golden « a territory of up to 16 square miles, living there in splenslid detachment trom the remainder of their spevies. [n stark contrast. the red-billed quelea a small African weaver-bird -fivesin dense roosts of up to ten million inslividuals. They scatter during the dty 10 feed, but reassemble every night in a vast. noisy crowd. blanketin sections of woodkind cloak of bodies. Even these “fe Toctst swarm can easily contain 40 thou ion individ record stvarm — one tht Wats sid to stretch for 2.000 miles was estimated at about 250 thousand million insects. An average-sized Tocust swarnt devours in the region of 20.000 tons of vegetation every day. But these are not organised. structur they are abnormal explosions of the locust populatio ev carry with them the seeds of their own downtall, as do modern human popukttions that are h direction. For we, like all animal species. have an optimum group size and iis one that we have exceeded so dramatically that our species is ale well on its Way to massive selF-destruction, Like locust swarms we experience a vatst population crash at some point. one that will dra back toa more uatural level. But that is another story. In the meantime, what are the natural levels of social grouping for other Grouping Behaviour All higher forms of fe lie in groups of particular size Some ate solitary. while other appear in huge flocks, like these flamingosAccording to Noah. all animals go in twos. like the golden eagles. but in cality the L units. of which the isoks re several bitsie sox ed pati is ony fone example, To classity these units inte different types is inevitably an ‘over-simplification, but itis nevertheless it helptial exercise 1 Solitary The adult males and females five alone and meet only in the br season. After courtship and copulation they split up further relations until the ak Without the help of the male, arin certain eases the male rears the young Svthout the help of the fem The solitary adults may wander over vaguely detined home ranges. or they may restrict themselves to clearly defined nnd defended territories, Animals tht fall into this general category incuce many territorial fish such as the river bullheat. many repliles. expecially snakes, a few birds, suchas the raf. and many mammals. such as bears, pandas and raccoons, With birds andl mammals itis nearly always the female that looks after the young. without the help of the male. but many fish reverse this qroceshire with all parental dutcs boing carrie out by the males, aginthe ase of nes-huilding stickleback and pouch-carrying seahorses 2. Pair Wherever the parental duties dre toy much for one parent, the male and female form a strong attachment for one another and live together ay a honded pair. Nesting fish, like many cichlids. form pairs that share the tal duties equally. and the same is true of over go per eent of all bird incubation and feeding duties are particularly demanding © comparatively care in reptiles. and although they are nd have ne st season, The femiypieal of ee I. stich as beavers, jackals, foxes and gibbons, thisis not the typieal mammalian grouping. Female mammalsaare better at eating for their young without male assistance and, where i s necessary. there tends to be a larger group than just a single pat 3. Family This is ly an extension of par, Whe arrive they often remain with the parents until they are fully. or nearly fully. grown. During the kiter stages of their development to adulthood they frequently move about with their parents and. at this sta ger grouping. jonally there may be overlapping liters. with older offspring aining while new abies are being cared for. In such cases the extended mily begins to look quite complex. but it is still essentially based upo the original pair. and when young do become fully adult they are driven away or wander off en their own to form separate pars 4 Harem A Vypical mammalian grouping consisty of one dominant male and a harem of fematles. The size of the harem varies fram species to species. In polygamous mo males. but with species such as fur seals. the up te one hundred females Mate deer and some antelopes are also capable of collecting and controlling sizable nut the breeding season. but Whenever the harem hecomes too maysive the harem-masters lose contrat and small splinter-graups of females are stolen by less dominant males in the Vicinity. The harem system requires. of course. that large number of sare unlucky in the breeding season and must remain on the fringe of the reproductive groups. There they may become solitary or may form into bachelor groups. When the harem-masters become too old or too sick, new overlords will emerge from the strongest in the bachelor groups id will take over the females. Inherent in this type of so marked sexuall dimorphism. wit uch bi nsequence of the lieree inter-male competition for dominance. ontrol aver females. there is also another dam rem. In some polygamous species. such as the patty monkey. the mates become henpecked. [n this species. harem of up to twelve females are usual and although the male remains the le watchdog and defender of the group. in ckishes with his females he is often the loser. There tre enough of them to gang up on him and dominate him, even thou oup ‘adminstrttor™ ems atre permanent. While others dissolve att the end of the 1g season, When this happens. the individu may sty together im new ». Red deer. for instance. Many animals, such as the puma ate sohtary for ‘most of the year, only coming together with ‘other members of thew species at mating time For the rest of the yeer they wander theit home tanges or defend their tereitones against all loys of he size of the h Is may disperse or they Winenover parental doves weuwetneattonsone PY APHAME up into make herds and female herds, tein inaiter ane lather pai formetisutokes Members. Then, when the nest breeding time comes around. the males blace (opposite. op) When o young female start moving in on the Female groups and fight one another for black backed jackal ust Comes -nto heat sh acai alata followed by several young mates. one of which Pessession af thatt year’s harem she selects 2s ner long, term partner La she isdenbound with cubs. he will bing = S)s§-: Matriarchy food to Mer and the paw will hen rearthev CoD Why q small shift in the balance of power between the genders, the h system can be converted into a matriarehy. In this type of gro Once the young ae born they may becared for females stay together at the cemire of society. with the by boln thew parents formany devs DurrG ths periphery. Instead of the dominant makes moving Social grouping, as itis for these highly females du g period. they are simply protective swans (opposite, bottom) A wan. This system is found in speci prolonced peniod of farnly ile permits the {wowing offspring to add individual leatning experiences to their inborn hehaviour they were convinced that the dominant member of the herd must be the 2024 oldest bull. This fitted their hum But we now know that the dominant and that the big bulls on the fringes of eleph cept of the di udder of the herd is the old st father-figure. rch ry splendour society. Occasionally several males may form oups together. but whether they do this or not the essential point is that if 1s the combined efforts of the femates that control the herd. d rearand defend the young forced to live out their lives in so 6 Oligarchy Moving up the seale towards more complex social groupings we come to the oligarchy. where power is invested in an dite wang of dominant males The common baboon belongs to this type of social gathering. Each troop, sit moves about its home range. consists of several powerful mae, the shared females and their combined offspring. Young adult males are driven out ofthis eroupand form separate bachelor parties that must bide their time-untl they can steal young females and set up an oligarchy of thir own The advantage of this arrangement is that it provides an efficent means of defence against predators, When attacked by leopard. forinstance. all the dominant males rush towards the attacker and together are able to imiimidateit. Singly. the Feopard woud defeat them, but together they eam drive it away. They can also help one another to dete: ick by rival male baboons that are attempting te take over their shared Females. Furthermore. ifone of the females becomes too dominant they ean pool their male reso fees to put her in her placeThis arrangement requires a certain amount of restraint opera part of the dominant mates, but Iy has compensa- tory advantages. IL is employed by a wide range of species. with slight sariations. Lu some cases there peck-order operating within the group of males. aind sometimes also within the group of femles. With certamt carnivores, only the dominant male copubtes with the females. He ever zives the other mafes a chance. In other groups, the dominant male ts most of the matings. and the oth allowed an oecasional ppukition Sometimes the dominant female is so powerful that only she hecomes pregnant and her subordinates must awanit her demise before being able to breed themselves, In wolves there is occasionally a drawback to being the “top-dog’. Wthe pack hay hecomte too big andl qimanageable, the dominant matte must spend all his time trying to contro it, He is often so busy that the less powerful males site able to disappear into a corner and eopukste with his Favourite females white his back és turned. This “tyeoon-taiking’ pattern is fone of the factors that 1 nore moderate pack-size at bet for power-hungry mates. 1r prospect 7 Arena Some species have developed an ail-mate grouping various birds species. such as nulls and black wrouse. the n cther in the breeding season on a special patch ot arena, There each displays as vividly ay he can, The fem e male oF the the young on their own. This is¢ displays (a special kind In es all cluster Med a ek oF the arei il Kes visi choice, mate with him and then depart to re: it with in more detail in the chit 8 Hierarchy I hierarchy, peck nance 1 are ranked acvorting to thir status. Whereas teritor individuals are dominant in their own area but subordinates in other ts. hierarchically grouped indivicras have the same status wherever they go. Their ran! mined not by pkace but by person, Some ons and ise 10 the Lap mm. This arran; lent can ly observed rer. or social dom individuals manage to intimidate stl Uheir compat ‘of the peck-order, Others sink to the bo Decome part ofa reproductive grouping, but itis also freq non-breeding groups. where at hierarchy develops in rekttion to food sourees. The top animals can displace the bottom onesatt feeding sites and gain other environmental advantages by virtue of being tougher than their foup companions, 9 Aggregation In noi breeding groups the size of the gathe swell and swell, ny of the type seen in wiklebeest and salmon There. when animalsare on the move. there i filtle social structure. merely aa mass of advancing animals. The huge conglomerates th: mble on stich occasions provide us with some of the greatest spectacles in the animal workd. Vast swarms of insects, endless shoals of lish, huge herds of telapes anid sky-filline migrations of birds. all reach dramatic propor tions and defy accurate counting especially during migrab 10 Caste system Among social insects there exist eutremely compley social org which there are different clisses of individuals, providing an ell division of kabour. Termites. ants, bees and wasps display various forms of this caste system, all of which show a level of social differentiation that In the common baboon, unlike the Hamadryas pexistsasan cli with several ninant mates sharing power This system i ficient because the males can gang Up oF allacking predators and thoir joint efforts are nough to drive them off Theres some degre fertavn males Acting Hf division of labour. Wwcannot be found among any vertebrate species other than man himself There are queens, kings. workers, soldiers. and drones, each with separate tisk to perform. Together they create a large nest, operate it smoothly and defend it against all enemies These i ten basie types of social grouping. For th the fascination is in findin nce to be a standard version of one of these ten species appears at first categories. Then, on closer inspection, it emerges that there are oddities in this particular instance (1s there are in som lhe questison to identity the surviv nf these particular idiosyncrasies. Ustially it hay something to do with th al by sharing: sharing the tisk of killing a large prey. sharing the tayk of defending the group against predators. sharing body heat to keep warm at night: sharing out different cuties that can be performed at the Food that has fen obtained hy special members of the group: and soon, Fach environment and cach species throws up its own unique combi i social demancls which, in turn, create the speetrum of variations on the theme of social grouping. And although we now know the faets for many species of aninntls. itis important to point out that for many more we still have only the erudest knowledge of their grouping behaviour. Much remains to be discoveredOst ANmnArS must five out thei fives with st ever Mics ‘of attack fro predators, When active they must akvays be on the allert. ready to take avoiding section, They have three hasie strategies: to freeze, to flee and to fight, often in that order a widkespreal response to at predator akarm am the better eamoullaged species. The eyes of predators are finely tuned t0 the slightest movement, ut are less well equipped to distinguish static shapes. especially if their outlines are blurred by broken patterning or by foliage cover. Some species. such ay hares and young antelope. will stay Stock-still in a crouching posture until the predator is almost upon them: belore bolting. Anyone whe has heen watking across grasstand nd has nearly trodden on a hare. will know what at shock it is when the animal suddenty feaps up ancl darts off, Its 2 Wits and make chats. Some prey species. such as tree squirrels. adda refinement to their freezing. bel switily d many of even before the predator ean Jour, Ax soon as they sight st predator approaching. they t round to the far sue of a unk before performing the cng on the trunk. they are now completely eno tell-take sound. [the iller comes prow side of the tree, they simply dart to the blind side again. 1 this way. squirrels ina wood can remain hidden from view while at predator explores the whole Woodpeckers use a simikur hiding technique, For the animal-watcher thiy strategy only becomes obvious when. from at hidden viewpoint. it is possible to see tl approachis ek il “st hidden from view and im around to th predator font the far side of the prey. Then the trick is revealed all too int have developed amazing! ezing fails to work. then the next step is to flee. Many prey species sctions. The speed af'some of these have been a n ‘of 40 miles an hour and antelopes have reliably reached over 50 miley an hour, The fastest prechator is the cheetah. which ean touch nearly 60 mifes.an hour a ity best. but i cannot sustain this for very Fong. Ine fact, the aver distance covered during pursuits by cheetahs ty only 183 yards. In exceptional cases they may be jor 300 vatrds, but beyond this they quickly become exhausted nd give up, This is where the prey cr. Some antelapes have ble to cont seare, because they ean keep going for much long Escape Behaviour 27been recorded fleeing at 42 miles.n hour for a mile. or x3 miles.an hour for 4 miles, and deer have been able tw sustiin 30 astonishing 20 miles. This may seem excessive performance. but there are other predators with much greater sami Wolves and hunting dogs may not be atble to reach dramatically high speeds over short distances, but they can run ind run, The speed of one 15 and 30 miles an hour for a distance of 12 mal had to slow down to a trot, Tundra wolves les an hour for an h’s relation to the chee Wolf was recorded at bet iniles, after which th have been observed ¢ attack. Clearly prey need to be both spr marathon runners over longer ones, to be against both types of purs g deer for 5 or 6 miles helore ace ters over short dis ble to defend th sinst sprintin dart on them. As they nces and rs. The seeret Is. 18 10 pont such asthe b faster, the ability to begin fleeing before they have had a chance to accelerate to full speed ty crucial. Hence the everalert nature of so many ntelopes. They must always be on the lookout for the stalking fel nning the chase iller will start to hunter. whose aim is Once the pursuitison. itis simply a matter of whether th es to reach tty vicum, With wild de isa battle of relitive staminas — who will last the ayelose as possible before b tre belore itn tmnt 1 PUrsUIE HL ts a Ifattacks come from above. running fast is evs ellective. Birds of prey have been registered nose-diving at speeds of up to #10 milesan hour, The best defence here is to go underground as quickly as possible. The matin prey of predatory birdsare the hundreds of different rodent species and the Vast majority of these have evolved a protection system based on at quick survival scamper down a tunnel. The burrow has become their mai Corosie. ctu} Many rae device. siving them not only from swooping birds but also trom Jouns of I In I carthbound predators too. to follow them. Hesing behaviour Bipedal leaping in kn Many other prey species flee upwards to safety rather than downwards er (eit WEST os cam tees ai Arboreal rodents, primates. and many other mammals take to the trees ay jajority of thens rarely risk a descent to the Unpredictable an escape route and the30 round unless it is vitally necessary. Birds, baty and ghdin simply take to the air, Many of the most impressive forms of locomotion have evolved ats extensions of leeing actions There a refinements of fleeing behaviour. Instead of trying 10 escape by moving as fast as possibte away from the predtor. some animals take anernatic zigzag course. The hare lees across at field in this w number of different hiraly and fish have also by touse this techniq) It works on the pr the purser will not be able as elliciently ats the prey. To he successful the direction-shifts of ial must be that the predattor cannot anticipate when or in which direction the next change of course will be. Unpredictable escape patterns of this kind have been called “protean” defence systems because like the figure of Proteus in ancient Greek mythology they repeatedly cha Another technique is the dash employed by 3 prolonged bout of fleeing, They make a sudden ds highest possible speed and then quickly freeze. st undergrowth. If the predator takey a wrong directis hiding untf the danger iy passed. but ifit comes close the fast mome keep this up ti up the chase A third device is the flash re wet This is that cannot sustain it movement at the quite still in the they remain in I grasshoppe Ln this the prey Mashes a bh 1 patelHorned (opposite. Bottom). ar frontend. 50 that their pe protection The herd solves this problem b forming a defensi when maraud wolves attack I fleeing fails and the prey is comered. make a last-ditch stand and turn on ts ormentor Sell defence of this kind may be more than a threat. asin the case of the inflated toad, standing high on 1s legs ¥ fronted byagr ke (above). or the frilled i (light) which erects a huge umbrella of sk anoundh ts gaping 2 of colour as it flees, and then it suddenly freezes. cone pate ay it does so. Some grasshoppers have vividly colow their wings the bright ed pattches on nd these are clearly visible when they are fying away from their enemies, But ay soon as they come to rest the wings close and the nimals hecome completely eryptic again. This confuses the predator beet se to speak. to the bright colour aud is following that, Once the colour disappears it is ats if the prey ceased to exist I Neeing and hiding have failed and the prey finds itsell cornered by its would-be killer. it may make one last desperate attempt to save itself, by throwing caution to the wind and attacking the predator physically. In most cayes this will not be of much use, but at this stage there is nothing to lose. And predators are surprisingly nervous about sustaining even minor injuries. This is because. should they be wounded. or should a small cut become infected. they may temporarily lose peak condition. I'they are not athletically fit they may not be able to hunt for a while and this could be critical. ay most of them must kill regularly to survive. Se spitting. clawing prey is given rather more respeet thy deserve. Many at hummgry eat hay thought twice about attacki cornered rat, Many small hirds have escaped with the loss of only a few feathery because of a smartly delivered peck with : sharp beth. And ils with horns have sometimes ma when making a lastalitch stand, For some prey. it becomes a ter of safety in numbers, with musk oven forming up in a defensive cirele to face a pack of mariuding wolves. like aw defending itself against attacking Ind With theye three techniques of free 10 survive fol hay “tuned in’ my. it may appear to mentors high ay effectively with detail in the following chapters.oe aHHH ANIMAL WORLD is $0 Lull of Savage teeth, sharp claws I and pointed horns that many species have sought protection behind a powerful wall of body armour. Once the need for il high-strong they possess this their whole lifestyle is, speedy. athletic fleeing. gone the need fon sensitivity to every tiny hint of danger Lortably heavy bodied. even cumbersome. and bumble their way through life at a more ved pace. They ave the tanks of the animal kingdom. and they come in ms, 12 the manuals they are com " ively rare, Only 169 mam- ian species (which tol the 4.237 living species) ean boast any form of armoured protection. It is true that there are many species with horns of antlers. but those are f ned with st cchators, They sre weapons rather thin protective cove The most primitive of the armoured 4 ers. from Australas mmals are the live species of Their underside is soft and hairy but the wh hick spines When disturbed. they make for a crevice or hole where they can jam themselves in so tight with their powerful claws that it isalmost impossible todislodge them. All the attacker is offered is sea of spines, with nothing to grip on to, [eaught out in the open. the echidna simply digs rapidly dovnwarals until. again, nothing i visible but its spiky upper surface. Amo ight spectes of spiny tenrees from Madagascar and filteen species of hedyehogs from Europe. Atvica and Asia. Th hh like the hedgeho defensive armour. with fine spines that can be erected ats the animal rolls sht ball, Some of the hedgehogs embellish their self-protection with an upward jerking movement, Ifa predator is nosing clase to them dl they have not yet rolled tightly into a ball. they may bend and the ehten their legs. thrusting their spiny backs up into the echidnas, oF spiny 3 ‘of their upper surface is covered in stron the inseetiveres th recs look very n into aKiller's sensitive nose. This upward jerk can be very painful and is to dishearten the attacker and allow the hedgehog to having to resort to the passive rolling-up sometimes scuttle awa detinee. In audition to these spiny inseetivores there are two other armoured species. the extraordinary hero shrews. Outwardly these look like large. fi ence — their amaving. I columa of any other mammal a network of interlocking protrusions [rom its vertebe normous strength and resistance to crushing. Contined these species of shrews have been persecuted locally because of thei Srnge internal armour, Local natives believe that, eaten or worn as decoration, they will act ats protection trom injury. To demonstrate the power of the animals, a fully grown man stands on the back of the 6-inch- Jong shrew. balancing himsell on one leg. Any other small mammal of this size Would quickly be squashed to death, but when he steps off it after vw reveals that it is still very much alive by to escape. The mystery about this ir is precisely what the shrew is de were clearly not the primeval enemy that led to the evolution of this unique backbone. so which deaully crusher was involved? This isa puzzle that has yet to heanswered, Another myste ye hero sh icular form of protective nst. Humans, surrounds the only example of body armour to be ates. The mor y kind of protective armour solve their problems, but the slow-moy known as Bosman’s potto does have a secret defenc shrew's. Here. too. the hickbone iy modified! and mace more impressive. but the details are different, In the potto’s case. the neck vertebrae have vanced monkeys or apes do not nd use brain rather than brawn to little relative of the bushbabies her like the herotic oft dents are t dp South vupines (below, left) may not right) but their quills are sharph short. blunt vertical protrusions that project slightly through the skin. The result iva Kind of knuckle-duster. a row of hard bumpy hidlen deceptively in the soft. dense fur. The puzzle here is how the animal employs these obviously defensive spikes when in trouble. When the slow-movin; is approached by an enemy. it curly up into a tight ball, clings on to its branch and lowers its head between its le the back of its spiky neck is thrust towaurds the predator. But this hardly seems su armoured detence. to deter any but the most esta the attacker's jaws open wide to grab the small turry shape. the potto like a jerking hedgehog and thrusts the back of ity neck at the biti mouth, Possibly the shock of feeling hard spikey m what appeared to soft. yielding morsel of food woukl be think twice. but this is not particularly convincing. I the spikes were sharp. like the dorsal fins of many fish, the strategy would be understand. but their sh nd bluntness mean that, For th the potto remains another puzzle Sharper spines. including the most fiendish known, are to be found among the rodents. In this huge group (1.729 species) there aire many armoured examples: 18 kinds ot ypiny miice. 22 spiny pocket mice. 37 spiny sand 24 porcupines. The mice and rats have simple. slender spi mixed in with their ordinary fur, Although they are not completely spiny. nevertheless prickly h to repel all but the most desperate of predators, It is with the porcupines. however. that the spiny defensive thes its zenith, Here the spikes pus quills those of the great crested porcupine are ay long its 20 mnches. They ean be rattled to produce arming sound. they can be thrust violently into the flesh of the attacker by backward lunges of the porcup and they can easily be detached to be lett embedded in the untortunatte predator's anatomy. Once driven home. these savaye spi y difficult to dislodge and may cont nent the would-be killer for lays to come, som wounds that ean kill the spines of the Amer nough to make some pred Ky to te mon nou)porcupin II buck ward-directed barbs, so that once in the Hlesh they arealmost impossible to dislodue, Furthermor the pain caused by the presence ofan embedded spine makes the muscles i has penetrated contraet in such a way that itis driven even eleeper inte the flesh. Some barbed quills have reputedly travelled so deep ter the bodies oof their vietims that they have caused the deaths of the predators fom the 's. These spines are covered in sim 1 calculated extensive damage caused to vitil ree that the 14-inch quills penetrate tissue in this way atta rate of an ineh a day Vhe North Aan ’s method of detending itsell is to lash IL sometimes turning the pred. nese intoa pin-cushion. The only killer tat seems te heave miaich sticeess 1 dealing with this troublesome prey is the North Ameniewn marten known as the fisher. This species citeles the porcupine like a mongoose dealing with 3 cobra, and contuses it enough to he able te strike at its only vulnerable zone — ity head. Alter a few blows there. the porcupine succumbs andl i then turned carefully over from underneath. its soft underbelly causing no problems. Eventually all tha wildly rs 1 the enemy with its spiny t is lett isthe spiny eoitl Mammals with non-spiny armour inctude anmadilloy and the seven species of pangolins, or sealy upper skin of the armadillo’s body has evolved into a h that ts hinged in such a way as to give the animals Hexibility. The hinges are arranged in bands st and vary in number according to the species. When alarmed. these ani usually try to make for cover. seeking out their burrows or some other hiding place where they can wedge themselves in ay tizttly as possible. The smallest of the species. the pink fairy armadillo. possesses one of the extraordinary rumps in the animal kingdom, Ity rear ent has become a completely flat. circular dise of armour. When the litle aninat is disturbed Je twenty-one species of ers. The The spines of the Afican porcup july Ht burrows furiously down into the ground unit it has completely encoun by hors may vot barbed V0! appeared except lor its horny runip. This acts like a cork in a ote, rae ihcalf seme and nis stopping the borrow and prov nly attack on the oH flesh he Dotteutar hon laces panial ut i The most impressive of all the armadille specie attack. iy the three-handed. This animal rolls up ball with the top of the he top of the tal fit like the last picees of jigsaw puzle. leaving no gap anywh predator to probe, As tn addled deterrent. this species ustally waits until the last moment for the final ekamping-dewn movement. It rolls up se that the gaps between its dilferent parts are nearly closed. but a small oper left. Then when itis touched it immediately snaps the shells together lke a steel trap. IE at this point. at tender nose-tip_ or small paw is being probed into the cracks. the result iy both painful and startling. ence us approach to this difficult object of inter smadilloy are all confined to the Americas. Iu the Ok Worl they 4 counterpart in the form of the strange. sealy anteaters. the pangolins. Looking ike huge. animated pine-cones, these tnnusual animals are covered in kirge. overlapping scales that extend right down to the tip of the Fong. prehensile tail. When disturbed they roll up so tishtly that it is Virtually impossible to unroll them. Although well protected against most predators they are no mateh for ham: snuity. Their Mesh ts popular with many local peoples and th Valuable as ornaments decorations, with the result that their numbers have been dvindl Fqually vulnerable to human weapons are the armoured giants of the nal world. the thinos sand the elephants, The most impressive of the rhinos is the great Indian shinoveros, with its tough skin thrown into heavy fokls that look like curved. welled sections of sheet-metal. Even the ta lly protected. fi nto ai deep groove on the when responding to to aun stlimost perfect ether tora lose est qlwhere to sheets of armour meet in a vertical cleft. Flephants lack these conspicuous folds. but they too are well defended against attack by their powerfil mes ty much ayn inch thick Amor -mour iy abyent for the obvious reason that it would make them toe heavy 16 fly, Only the large. ground-tiving eassowaries from the Australasian rain forests possessanything that could be called avian it is confined solely to the head region. The top of the skull is extended into a bony helmet, called a “easque’. that helps to cut a swathe through the dense undergrowth when, the big bird is moving fast, It shields the head trom damage and can therefore be described ay protective armour ofa fimited kind Only the legs of birds show the tough scaly skin that reflects th reptilian ancestry. 11 is to the reptiles themselves one must turn to find the greatest display of armoured scales that are allenveloping. protecting their wearers over the whole surface of the body, Each seale ist hard. d shield of keratin growing out from theanimal'sepidermis and overlapping ‘with its neighbours to make a body-covering that isay snugly fitting as its strong. The keratin is dead materia! that is replaced by growth from below. The old armour iseither worn away eraclually.sty in crocodiles. or itis shel aa special times int complete “coat asin lizards anid snakes. The strongest forms of reptilian armour are reinforced by small plates of bone tying under the horny scales. These are at their most impressive on the backs of the giant crocodiles. where they are tozet The great Indian rhinoceros y moured skin This is @hancicapp Tacing a pursuing predator. bul at the time makes the rhanoceros an almost impossible meal Even il tails protected trorn ack, tnling neatly nto stotin Ws rump shaped and give these Simour 9Horm amo be shut tight sts. further protection, with the headl ane behind the barrier, Some have a hinge to close the head-end aperture others have a hinge to protect the hind legs: still others have both. The 40tak bigheaded turtle 1s unique in having a heavily armoured head and tail Which it never attempts to draw into its shell when attacked Amphibians. like birds and most mammntls, have soft bodies that are easily squeezed in predhitory jants, They rely on many forms of protective behaviour, but the wearing of armour iy not one of them, There is only one notable exception to this amphibian rule and that is the extraordinary sharp-ribbed newt, This small and seeming hidden weapon. When it is grabbed. its elongated, sharp-pointed ribs are pressed out through the sides of its body and into the fining of the mouth at the hapless hunter. The tips of the spiny ribs pass through special pores they impale the predator and they carry with them the secretions of nearby glands glands that cause intensely painful poisoning of the inside of the attacker's mouth, Such newts are long remembered and long avoided Many species of fish employ similar defence tacties. with fin-rays hardened into sl often greatly elongated and trequently have poison added a lasting: impression. Some fish spines which a2boast armour so deadly that the predator dies within uinutes of bit spines. Observations of predatory fish attacking spiny prey reveal alter one expericnee of even a non-poisonous sp shocked by the pain inside their mouths that U days. Eventually. when they begin cautiously to feed hing remotely like the spiny prey they attacked previously, And the bigger and sharper the spines. the longer this efleet kists. The supreme example of spiny defence is shown by the porcupine fish, a small intlatabke cereature that can pull rtself up inte at prickly sphere. etther with an in} of watter when wader the surface. or with air when it bats by removed from As its body becomes fitlly inf spines, Je menacingly. defying any predittor to attack. Atother times these st the hody sind are inconspicuous, ‘gs the predators are so oll their food for they avoid mon he lower Forms of fife and are elearly the most successful of all armoured devices, There are treacherous spiny seat urchins, spiny molluses and spiny lobsters, all well protected by their shy tp p-pointed defence bartiers. Even without spines. nearly all-rthropods wns. crabs and lobsters) and molluses (snails nd bi-valves) are snugh enclosed in hard outer coverings. Their shells provide them with valuable protection but like all armoured species they are t certain disadvantag they Iways fess mobile. less flexible. and suffer the conse quences. They arealso less cunning and exploratory. having fess dang face than the soft-bodied species. In generat. armoured animals rich people insulated trom the er 10 like hazards of life and therefore fess Bstreetwise’ and opportunist, [is no aeetdent that all the higher forms of life, all the most intelligent species, are without arme moured animals ts neatly summed up by an 1 path ¢ below them, When they mediately reacted with their automatic re family promptly rolled response of rolling up into it ti down the slope of the hill and came to rest at the man’s picked them up and popped them into his collecting bag. Sometimes it pays to be a little more flexible ct. where he 44Drs for avord them, IF it possesses some sort of strength physical. chemtieal or armou nemies and ¢lefy them [Citas harmless some way of concealing itsell, Under duress lly. For the rest of the i I AN ASDMAE S Lo survive it must either contront pred -d_itean face up boldly to its or sofi-hodied. it must find may Nee and hide. but it ean ne the quieter moments in itylife it must render itself inconspicuous. He must conceal its Form with some sort of camoutlage The most abtious clue to ity presence is ity movement. so in onder for its camoullage to Work it must be prepared to remain very still for long periods of time, or at least ou very slowly and gently. Its next problem is how to conce acteristic outline. Most animals are w halanced to match with the plants, rocks and earth, To hide of disruptive markings © are several types of distupbon, One of them employs a pxvehtological trek. 1 an 1s covered with irregular patches that break up its outline. the concealment can be improved by the presence of bright colours within these patches. These intense areas automatically draw the eves of the predator sind ty he stares at them he fails to notice the lequin Principle sweetlips. at fish that wth only do this vee: Hes they need 0 wt Another type of disruption ploy a series of intense bands oF stripes These cl dark in alternation and again help to chop up the mal ty seen ayamnst a pale hackeround. the pak: patches blend an with the environment, leaving only the dark patches visible, On thei own. these alo not ahd ap to cat animal shape, amd disruption is tchieved. HW the background changes to dark, the same system aperates. This iy the Particoloured Principle and is found Je variety of fish and insect, A third type of disruption helps to conceal ps party of the body Certain ms, necks. Feet or Wings tend 10 he game away. They help to detine the prey’s body as a body, A Aalnable way of conees pes or blobs of colour that appear to overTow front one sectton to the next, as though someone has splashed ink eross the amma, This Splash Prineiple is. tinely developed in many frogs, When they are movi Field apart fiom the body the sphash-pa cromch mottontless. with theit leg patches meet and obscu wotky by mak Splash Principle pass right across the anim: ucal shapes such as te hem is tw have bars. fern is not obvious. but once ssalranvn up to their sides, their trunk and cthe divisions between them, Most disruption 1s outlines appear to be discontinuous. but the way. making what isin reality a discontinuous suuface appear to be a continuous one, In both cases the ullage is interfering with the natural elements, but in one ease it is attacking the whole shape. while im the other it iy blotting out the appendages san the oppost which simply break up the broad shape of the body are found in the many spotted or striped species. Bis suet ay the tiger employ stipes that work well m the grassy undergrowth Serval cats. ocelots and keopards favour spotted coats that Work well in dlappled heht. 1 ny of the body markings appear to be beautiful nd highly eonspicnous. but this is because we yo often see them in artificial environments where their camoutlige quality fails to show yet Sect agaist a plan, bleak background, most disruphive pattents lat uty. ut there are few such backdrops in a. One highly specialised form of disruptive pattern is the ev akes the form of a stripe. band or patch of dark colour that Camouflage 45ny sanimatl shape stud it is a obscure it from view. IP the eye's owner employs the more obvious technique of closing the eye. it iy no longer able to monitor the predator's movements, Bul if the eve can remain open without being seen. then the prey has the best of both worlds. This eye-mask device is extre sh. with literally hundreds of speciesemploy hes and frogs. A spe ant of the eye-mitsh is h. In this, the math k like the dark pupil of the fish’seve. eye is lost nvolves e the spot-the eye pattern of consist of a pattern of dark spots all of which fe In thiscrowd of spots. the Adlistinet forn of co noull by coumtershading This works on a completely different principle from disruptive colou Instead of trying to break p the real shape of the animal. it attempts to fs. All animals have three-dimensionat bodies and their solidity can give them away. IF they appear to be two- ensionatl they suddenly scem fess “animal-tike” oid. the welcome attentions of a hungry predator. Cou a simple premise. namely that in the animals usu body is more brightly fit than the rest. A completely plain. fawn-voloured antelope studing in a fawn-coloured landscape would appear to be solid bodied because ting down on its hack. would illuminate this its sides amd much more than its belly. E coat colouring compensates for this top-Highting. the hack bei than the sides and the stdes darker than the belly. In this way. the ion of fight-plus-colour gives th A less conspicts 1 species the some caterpil usually crawling along twigs tnd branches upside-down, their counter shading is reversed. I they are deliberately turned up the ‘right’ way. they appear doubly solid. ats the brighter light strikes the pater str The simplest method of all. where body concealment is concerned, 0 46h perfectly the colour of the background. Whether this is a plain green. of yellow, of an overall mottled grey and brown, the result is boxly-covering of precisely the same hue and tone. Tiny. put five out their lives on k cn frogs, ©. pure nore claber called for, Arctic mammats and birds have evolved pure white fur oF feathers that help to camouflage them astinst the white expanses of the frozen north, Grave-botton-dwelling fish have gravel pattern colou But the problem often becomes more complex than this, As the animal moves atbor . Dealing with this problem. many have evolved various forms of colour change. Some, like flatlish peleons. are capable of changing colour rapidly by expand contracting spectal pigment cells mm their skin, The ectopus can even modify the texture of ity skin at high speed. a smooth, plain surface suddenly furrowing up into compley folds and ridges and gaining a complex blotched patterning at the sime time. Other species sare only een leaves. Nothing s background chi and eh: portant than camoutlage and bright colours a he rest of the year sell-protection dominate The colours of certain other species can be modified only when there isat genetic shift in th ion, This hay happened recently with the peppered moth. a speckled species that is camoullaged on the tichen- al trce-trunks where it normally fives. Following the Industr many trees became blickened by smoke and on thes speckled moths were suddenly highly conspicuous, They we target for hungry bi asily picked off, Only moths that tunusmually teh mit escape, and these then bred to produce a generally greyer strain of peppered moths. Again. it wits the dtrkest ones that survived best. with the result that in at few genet he sand wer wed 4smaths living near the big mdustrial cities were nearly all black, By 196 survey ner the city of Manchester revealed thitt. there, 99 per vent of ail the jo live in cleaner, country districts retain the ustetl, speck! species. Ii at very short space of time — just a few decades — the industrial moths had gone through a sarall but distinet evolutionary step, Today the the grimier habitats and, if our cities sppered moths were already bltck. while thase continuing pearance of the melanistic moths are sull thriving go on spreading at their present rate, these black ones may well become the common forn of the species. Pethaps the mast extraordinary examples of animal camouflage are those in which the aunimals con details in their backsrounds. There are insects that look exitetly like leaves, Others are virtually indistinguisbable from the flowers with which they assoctite — so much so that smaller insects keep settling on them There are stick inseets that look like (wigs. butterflies that resemble bird droppings, seahorses that appear to be f that look like bark sind trogs that s on the forest floor. The tiny perlections of detail in these leceptions h puzzled some animal watchers, who argue that no predator could he shat ing refinements which unty ned have evolved inte mimics of specific » he nothin clever so why should there include such Uuings ats small patehes of Lake feal-mould. or tiny pieces of Fhe answer is that these deveptions have to Took all possible ea damage predators and while some may be able to tune in to one detail others may have a searching-aniage for something quite different. In the end. the only system that works well. across the hoard. is the one that involves perfect imitation cation is what One fist Gunoutlage technique that deserves at brietmight be called! “halt-hiding’ Instead of fleeing to a safe plaice and hiding away there with complete hody concealment, the animal takes up st sen position fom which it ean ret fe highly ellictent at wriggling themselves down ly the tops of their heads and their eyes re “d. their eyes vo gravelin such a way th exposed to view, Wit unnoticed. Lying completely sul they ca ved technaque with many bor eal Hhatlish flap up the s sudden Hurry of ichly he perfectly still, The sand cloud settles on tes their tell-tale outlines. With a few deft eye: nal watch the world about them bodies and oblite for clues of special dane a different way he passing thron incl of fish swims past. the pred ¢ species. stich as the trumpet fish. hide i thatt escape detection by 1010 shoal of some other moves into their midst around the eor nel progresses with them ats they make their mirdens. By Unts simple deviee. it is able to conceal its highly characteristic body shape and ts able to approach more For predators make just as much use of eamoull hunting or hunted. the act of once: survival technique for literally thousainds of species.MMIORITY OF ANHUAESare not brightly coloured. Their I lull coats make them inconspreuous and they survive by avoiding trouble, Those that break this rule and display 1 colours and vivid patterns are taking st risk. By making th obvious to predatory they can easily attract unwanted attention, So for the ve. with every brightly coloured particular advantage there 1s in antmal-watcher at becomes st chatle out whe species encountered, 10 fi up the qu and facing da appear to be th swers, First, the at ieolours for social reasons te sittract I duties, Se ict from other species with Which At shares its living space. 10H space is particularly rich cnvironme many kinds iy plentiful, many diflerent species will be able te live there together providin tell one another apart instantly. Bright colours and compley patterns help to m:tke this possible Third. an animal may be by that it is not to be tilled with. Any species with a “Seeret weapon’ — an cl mty need Lo mathe ttyelt q _ sucht ay a coral reel, and food of high status, oF carry out parent dist they © tly coloured as a watrntg to Hts enemies Nesh, poison glands, a painful stiag or Yenomouy bite can advertise the fet by wearing conspicuous warning coloration, Patterns of colours used in this way are called “aposematic tthe L words ape semua meaning, literally. “awaty-stenal) We know that these “go away" signals work because time and again predators have heen observed te avout ntly coloured affered hunclreds of diferent kin species. When monkeys w of insects. many brightly coloured and h dull patterns and colours. only one in five of tte br were eaten, while three out af four of the dull ones were eagerly gobbled up. The monkeys were cuutiouy when fronted with conspicuous markings. They may have acquired this caution by observational le warfare’ — or they may have evolved san mborn reaction towards bry patterns, enabling them to avoid such species from birth without a # process. or they may have fearmed caution the hard way. by personal experience Personal experience. iF happened. would have felt them with a deeply embedded memory of an acutely unpleasstnt incident, Has ative youn hunters. they attacked a brightly coloured prey. bit it und started 16 chew it, only to discover that ith. they J 4 foul taste oF a poisonous secret would probably reme er for the rest of ther hives, Frequently “one cdl. 1saill that is necesstry, Any human beng has eaten a bad oyster. spent a night in agony. and vowed never to touch oysters again. will understand thts, For all ty speed. the hun pleasant for the prey animal providing the education. At best it will be severely prodded and nipped. More likely. it will he niuuted sind mangled: And in all possibility it will never recover. This tsone of the weaknesses at the system, Wautni 1s work well with ed 1's learning process ts not particularly icated predators but do involve repeated sacrilices as young hunters learn their trade, Nevert nt chemical pr fess. taken on Wee. IF YOU Possess uNpet perttes, pays to advertise. Once the learning has taken place. the predators leave you alone and youcan go about your business am a quictly rehased mannet 2. hiding. pante, or seuttfing for cover. fn Lie. the pace of your life will be slower and your filespan maty even be extended without too much Mee Animals with warning colours on average live longer than these without and there is at simple reason for this, Once they have completed their reproductive life they can hve on past tals “trtinery Lor novice predttors, I they ave fatally damaged when satticked. their deaths do wot alect thepopulation sts a whole because they have al doing so, They therelore take some of the st stock within their species. If dull, eryptic animals live 01 in oll the younger bre alter thetr by contrast. only serve to inerease the reproductive phase is over th population density of their kind and thereby increase the chances of predator finding them, despite their camouflage, Onee the killer hay stumbled upon ene cryptic mdividual. it quickly develops a “searching image’ and then finds others more easily. So it pays for eryptic species to dig soon alter their breeding period is over One disadvantage ning colours iy that they may attract killers who might have missed the prev animals altogether t they had not been so wudy. A relinement that overcomes this is coloration that appears inconspicuous at at distance but extremely bright and vivid near by — an improvement found in certain caterpillars and moths. for example. An Hlernative fsa special posture that the prey swlopts when approached by the predator. suuddenly showing olf its warni posture hides these bright colours: the display reveals. them quarters, Many amphibians employ this device. Other weaknesses of the system are that stupid killers donot kearn quickly enough, if at all, Predators from the lower ranks of the animal Kingdom sometimes seem to be incapable of inhibiting their automatic responses to the brightly coloured individuals they encounter, With each attack. it isaty if they are mectiny the distasteful animal for the first tine, This means that for certain prey being conspictious is a constant risk and worth tiking. Only wise predators can be broken in, Also, any cat anything when hungry enough, tly coloured succumb with s that have been able to develop a -at the noxious prey g volours. The normal t close not on killers. wise or stupid. can be driven to. special toler without ill-efleets, Clearly. though, despite these few shortcomings. the warning display is a uselul one, It is Found over 3 wide range of species. from butterflies and, snakesand skunks. The yellow and black bandin ered and avowed. The black and white stripes of sand Wasps tose wasps is easily remetharm " tect themselves fror k by di A the skunks. ict ay a powerful deterrent, even from a great distance. sand butterflies, ladybird and many other animal roups. From close seri that they alll have se on. To start with, nearly all the warn hack buck; ws up vividly against the dark it ope € good colour vision, tion is that it varies rs aire found among eaterpill: und beetles, Irogs ai iny. it soon eme Te of pale bs ht patches aga is usually white or yellow er ora y Wis desi nds. The pale colour es just as well With colour-blind predators.as with those that h Another strange quality of warnin remarkably little from one species to the next. By re the Same sorts of patterns. Again. this is no accident and ith Forexample. arth pakitable butterflies living in one particular region and one of them has evolved a warning pattern of black. yellow and red markings. it will pay the others to follow suit because thes will then all share the “training risks’ associated with novice predators. Once at young killer has attacked ‘one individual with this wing pattern. 1 will not only avoid other members { species but also members of other species that look superficially like it, These warning clubs’ were discovered by at German fiell-worker called Fritz Miller. It wayats teach species of inedible butterily was mimicked by the others. and known ay Miillerian Mimicrs Another form of mi Henry Bates. Alsoa field observer of insects. he noticed that many edible butterflies had the same bright markings as inedible ones. He saw that these tasty species were treated with respect by predaitors als if they too were distasteful to eat. In other words. they were sheep in woll’s clothing. They were the harmless copying the han fiting trom the deception. This type of warning signal is todity known as Baresian Mimicry. only works well. of course. if there ar the genuinely distasteful individuals around to keep the predators well trained. If the mimics swamp out their models. the trick succeeds. Studies with starlings as predators showed that the m colo aresevertlq) ed species fy was discovered by the En