imagine that you are an antelope, leisurely grazing on the African prairie. All of a sudden, a cheetah rushes at you! What should we do at this time?

run quickly, run as fast as you can, and use all your strength-is that what you think? If so, congratulations. Wrong answer.

in fact, according to a recent study, the trick for prey to escape is not to run too fast. The data show that they do not usually run at full speed, but at a relatively medium speed. The researchers also believe that only in this way can prey have the greatest chance of escape.

Why is this happening? Because pure speed and strength are actually quite disadvantageous to these prey. The real advantage of prey lies in flexibility and unpredictable running routes. You may also have the experience that it is more flexible to change course at a lower speed than running as fast as you can. At critical moments, prey can take an unexpected U-turn to get rid of predators and create opportunities for themselves to escape. Running in a straight line with all your strength is actually good for predators because it makes the movements of prey very predictable.

this study, published in the journal Nature, is the first detailed record of hunting in the natural environment. The researchers chose two pairs of predator /prey species that fell in love and killed each other: the antelope VS cheetah and the zebra VS lion. They gave animals special collars to collect real-time information such as position, acceleration and speed, and assessed their muscle strength through muscle biopsies. In order to understand their real state in the race at ordinary times.

(a zebra wearing a research collar)

Research data found that the predators in both groups were faster and stronger, and they were also better at acceleration. On the other hand, the advantage of prey lies in mobility and initiative in changing routes. These two different advantages also reflect the delicate balance in evolution.

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of course, these escape strategies are not for human reference, after all, our species sprint is really not good.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42792190

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/science/cheetahs-lions-zebras-impalas.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25479