8/10/2023 0 Comments Do cheetahs have any predatorsAnimal Shelter/YouTubeĪcceleration A change in the speed or direction of some object.īiomechanics The study of how living things move, especially of the forces exerted by muscles and gravity on the skeletal structure. In a race with no turns, a cheetah can outrun just about any other animal. She hopes the new paper will inspire more study of other types of hunting, such as ambushes. She has studied the unpredictable escape hops of little desert rodents called jerboas. She is a biomechanist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Now it would be interesting to study chases in places other than a relatively open savannah, he says.Īlso, predators hunt in many more ways than just rapid pursuits, notes Talia Moore. This study “adds a major piece of the puzzle in the predator-prey arms races,” Domenici says. But it doesn’t let scientists get a sense of animal moves in real-world chases. Five or 10 years ago, he notes, measurements of animal athletics came mostly from treadmills or other lab setups. He works at the Institute for Coastal Marine Environment’s center near Oristano, Italy. He is a biomechanist, which means that he studies motion in living things. The detailed collar data allowed for a new level of analysis, says Paolo Domenici. If you took lions and put them on a tropical island covered in sheep, they’d eat all the sheep. “Your prey has to be fast enough to escape some of the time, but not all of the time. The results of this research should help scientists better understand the ecosystem, Wilson says. The team shared its findings in the February 8 Nature. They showed a lot of running at moderate speeds by both predator and prey. These computer results were backed up by the collar records. That’s when the prey could pivot more to the side. At top speeds, the prey had few options for veering to where a predator couldn’t pounce. They created stride-by-stride computer simulations of hypothetical pursuits. The researchers also wanted to see how an impala or zebra might escape the cats. Both lions and cheetahs had about 20 percent more fiber power in a leg muscle than their prey did. In the lab, the researchers used those samples to measure muscle-contraction power. They froze them in liquid nitrogen to take them back to England. While in Botswana, Wilson and his colleagues nipped tiny samples of muscle fiber from animals. They could also slow down faster, with some 72 percent better deceleration. The predators also had about 37 percent faster acceleration. But the data let researchers compare more than 5,500 animal runs.Įach predator had advantages over its typical prey, the new study found. None of the collared cats were recorded chasing the collared prey. These were cheetahs and impalas, and lions and zebras. Wilson’s team collected collar data for two predator-prey groups in Botswana’s savannah. Then they can download data on the animal’s adventures. The collar falls off an animal after a certain time. These collars collect data multiple times a second. The new collars record data to calculate an animal’s position, speed and acceleration. So Wilson and his colleagues designed new collars. “Typically, your tracking collar will tell you where an animal is once an hour - or once every five minutes if you’re lucky,” he says. Wilson is a veterinarian and research scientist who says he’s “an equipment geek.” He began collecting data on cheetah chases in 2011. “You’re actually doing a step-by-step dissection,” Wilson explains, “which is pretty cool.” That let the researchers reconstruct the animals’ sprints and turns. This included several hundred thousand strides from those animals. Wilson’s group teamed up with researchers in the southern African nation of Botswana to collect motion data from wild animals. He works in Hatfield, England, at the Royal Veterinary College of the University of London. He studies biomechanics - how animals move. However, prey still have a chance, says Alan Wilson. Overall, cheetahs and lions are more athletic than the impalas and zebras they chase. That’s according to a new analysis of the most detailed chase data yet from big predatory cats. Swerve far enough, and the cheetah behind you will be racing too fast to make the same turn. The best escape move is some fluky turn, even though it requires a slower stride. The cheetah will catch you in a straight race. Don’t just zoom off as fast as four hooves can carry you. Scientists have some advice for an impala suddenly rushed by a cheetah.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |