Fish Predation and Prey Strategies

Flashcards about Fish Predation and Prey Strategies

Predation Cycle of Fishes

The cyclical process involving searching/detecting, pursuing, attacking, capturing, and handling prey.

Active Search

Predators actively scan the environment using senses like olfaction, vision, hearing, electroreception, lateral line, and taste to find prey.

Amino Acids

Sharks use these as cues in the water to locate wounded prey.

Sea Robin (Triglidae)

A fish that utilizes free pectoral fin rays with taste receptors to search for invertebrates in sandy bottoms.

Lie-in-Wait Predators

Predators that remain stationary, relying on camouflage to deceive prey and conserve energy.

Lie-in-Wait Predator Examples

Examples of these predators include lizardfishes, scorpionfishes, stargazers, toadfishes, and flatfishes.

Schooling

In fishes, it can aid in finding areas with prey, especially for filter-feeding fishes feeding on plankton.

Pursuit

The process of a predator getting closer to its prey, utilizing cursorial or lurking strategies.

Cursorial Predators

Predators that are capable of high-speed, sustained swimming.

Lurking Predators

Predators adapted for fast-start, sprint attacks, often with low aspect ratio tails and large caniform teeth.

Luring

A predatory strategy involving deceiving prey, such as Lophiiformes using an illicium (fishing-rod) and esca (lure).

Group hunting

When several groups of coral fishes learn to hunt in mixed species

Handling Prey

Post-capture actions, such as piscivorous fish swallowing prey headfirst due to gape limitations.

Non-Gape Limited Fishes

Fishes in which chunks of flesh can be removed from larger prey using biting and side-to-side head motion.

Rotational Feeding

American Eels using body torsion to spin for the purpose of tearing off pieces of food.

Camouflage

Avoiding detection by prey through blending in with the environment.

Appearing like a predator

When fish appear like predators.

Batesian Mimicry

A form of mimicry where a non-toxic species imitates a toxic one to deter predators.

Disruptive Coloration

Coloration patterns that confuse predators, using high contrast colors to hide the body's outline.

Countershading

Darker coloration on the dorsal surface and light coloration on the ventral side, used by both predators and prey.

Behavioral Strategies

Fish using shade for visual advantage over sunlit observers.

Schooling and Shoaling

Predator detection information is spread throughout the school before a predator can succeed confusion effect dilution or abatement effect

Balloonfish

Anti predatory adaptations by inflating.

Aposomatism

Warning displays to would-be predators.

False Eye Spots

Eyespots on fishes that may misdirect the attack of predators allowing fish to escape and bites to occur in non-lethal areas.

Trafalgar effect

Predator detection is spread out through school

Abatement effect

Risk of being eaten per individual goes down