Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine 321 Steinhaus Hall, Irvine, CA 92697 USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2022 Aug 10;289(1980):20221085. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.1085. Epub 2022 Aug 3.
The pursuit of prey is vital to the biology of a predator and many aspects of predatory behaviour are well-studied. However, it is unclear how a pursuit can be effective when the prey is faster than a non-cryptic predator. Using kinematic measurements, we considered the strategy of red lionfish () as they pursued a faster prey fish () under laboratory conditions. Despite swimming about half as fast as , lionfish succeeded in capturing prey in 61% of our experiments. This successful pursuit behaviour was defined by three critical characteristics. First, lionfish targeted with pure pursuit by adjusting their heading towards the prey's position and not the anticipated point of interception. Second, lionfish pursued prey with uninterrupted motion. By contrast, moved intermittently with variation in speed that included slow swimming. Such periods allowed lionfish to close the distance to a prey and initiate a suction-feeding strike at a relatively close distance (less than 9 cm). Finally, lionfish exhibited a high rate of strike success, capturing prey in 74% of all strikes. These characteristics comprise a behaviour that we call the 'persistent-predation strategy', which may be exhibited by a diversity of predators with relatively slow locomotion.
追捕猎物对于捕食者的生物学来说至关重要,许多捕食行为的方面都得到了很好的研究。然而,当猎物比非隐蔽性捕食者更快时,追捕如何才能有效,这一点尚不清楚。我们使用运动学测量,研究了红狮子鱼()在实验室条件下追捕更快的猎物鱼()时的策略。尽管狮子鱼的游泳速度比慢一半,但在我们的实验中,狮子鱼成功捕获猎物的比例达到了 61%。这种成功的追捕行为有三个关键特征。首先,狮子鱼通过将头部朝向猎物的位置而不是预期的拦截点来进行纯粹的追逐,从而瞄准猎物。其次,狮子鱼以不间断的运动追逐猎物。相比之下,猎物以间歇性的方式移动,速度变化包括缓慢游动。这种间歇运动使狮子鱼能够接近猎物,并在相对较近的距离(小于 9 厘米)发起吮吸式攻击。最后,狮子鱼表现出很高的攻击成功率,在所有攻击中,有 74%都成功捕获了猎物。这些特征构成了我们称之为“持续捕食策略”的行为,这种行为可能由许多相对缓慢移动的捕食者表现出来。