Tom Peake
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Active Defense, by definition is anything an
animal can do to defend itself from
predators.
Running, hiding, fighting are all forms of
active defense.
Anything an animal can do by itself, to
defend it self is active defense
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A large part of Active Defense is evolution.
An animal can evolve its traits to help defend
itself.
Example – A cheetah can grow longer legs to
escape. A snake can develop more poisoness
venom to defend itself.
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Passive defense is a defense mechanism from
predators that some animals have.
Passive defense has to do with the color, or
structure of the animals body.
They use these skills to hide or blend in with
an environment around them. There are two
major types of passive defense.
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Definition – When one animal copies the
appearance, actions or sounds of another
animal. This animal is called a mimic.
Mimicry is the other form of passive defense.
Certain animals use mimicry as a defense
mechanism from predators, they can copy or
imitate certain skills that similar animals use
to defend themselves.
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Some animals camouflage their entire bodies
to protect themselves from predators.
If the camouflage works well, the predators
won’t see them and they can survive.
Certain animals who use camouflage can
change color to match the certain
environment or color behind them. Other
ones have one distinct camouflage color to
match one material.
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There are two different types of predators.
General predators and Special predators.
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Certain predators / carnivores can hunt any
kind of prey.
Example – Lions can hunt Gazelles, Impala,
Warthogs, Buffalo, Zebra – any sizeable
mammal in their environment.
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Specialist predators are predators that only
prey on one specific type of prey.
They have special ways and adaptations to
hunt their one type prey to perfection.
Generations worth of adaptations have
occurred to make certain specialist predators
have perfect features for hunting
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The Anteater or Giant Anteater has a long
mouth or snout, perfect to stick down
anthills.
They suck up hundreds of ants at a time for
their meals.
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Evolution plays a huge part on how all three
of these defense / hunting mechanisms work.
Animals improve on their hunting specialties
throughout time.
These mechanisms also have to do with
Natural Selection.