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TPO 65- Speaking Question 4

Listen to part of the lecture in a biology class.

Professor: Many animals travel in groups in order to protect themselves. This makes it difficult for a predator to capture them for food because it’s hard for the predator to target one single animal and stay focused on it. But there are ways that predators can overcome this problem.

Let’s look at a couple of strategies some predators use. One way in which predators can hunt animals that live in groups is that they can identify an individual animal that looks different from the others. An animal may have a particular feature that makes it stand out from the others. For example, there is a small fish called a mino.

Minos usually swim together in groups. And most minos appear similar to each other, but sometimes there’s a mino that’s a different color from the others, and what scientists have discovered is that predator fish will often chase after this differently colored mino because it is easy to see. So the predator can more easily focus on it and catch it.

Now another way that predators can hunt animals that live in groups is by physically breaking up the group in order to separate an individual animal from the rest. Sharks, for example, have been observed to swim directly into a large group of fish and thrush their tails around in order to scatter the fish. When the shark moves its tail so forcefully and so fast, it breaks up a group of fish into smaller groups that start swimming away in different directions. Then the shark can more easily locate and go after an individual fish that has become separated from its group.