Instead of simply fleeing directly away from a predator, many prey species from across the animal kingdom choose to escape in a surprisingly wide range of directions. Scientists have long suspected that this unpredictability helps them evade capture by keeping predators guessing about the prey’s next move.
By studying how real predatory fish (blue acara cichlids) attack robotic prey, researchers from Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences were able to experimentally test this idea. Rather than confirming that unpredictable escape tactics are beneficial to prey, the new research suggests that predators can neutralise this strategy by flexibly adjusting their own behaviour.
'Responsive robotic prey reveal how predators adapt to predictability in escape tactics' by Dr Andrew Szopa-Comley and Dr Christos Ioannou in PNAS [open access]