Learning Objectives

12.2.1 Know the search and capture mechanisms of carnivores and the ways animal prey avoid being eaten.

12.2.2 Describe how plants avoid being eaten and how herbivores can overcome these defenses.

Among the other challenges they face, all animals must obtain food while striving to avoid being eaten themselves. As we have seen in Concepts 5.4 and 8.2, this ongoing drama has resulted in the evolution of a dazzling array of morphological and behavioral mechanisms in both predator and prey. Let's consider some of them here.