Invertebrates

After a prey individual has made the decision to flee from an approaching predator, a range of important behavioral options remain open to it, which can strongly influence the likelihood of flight being successful. We will explore some of these and consider signaling to the chasing predator (and to others) during flight and other ways prey may exploit the predator’s sensory systems. The most obvious way in which prey behavior during flight can influence escape ability is through control of the trajectory of its escape path. We will therefore focus the bulk of the chapter on this issue, not only because it is important, but also because there are many factors that may influence escape trajectory. However, flight logically begins with the initial directional decision. At first sight it seems obvious that prey should turn and flee away from the oncoming predator, but even this is not as simple as it first seems. To discuss this decision most effectively, we first introduce the reader to the concept of directionality in the early phase of an escape response (i.e., the first detectable reaction to a threat). We focus only on certain aspects of behavior during predation attempts in some depth rather than covering all aspects briefly. We have not necessarily chosen the behaviors that might have the strongest influence on the outcome of flight. Rather we have chosen topics where we feel we can offer a fresh perspective on how extensive research in the field could further develop. We will begin by noting a number of topics that we do not explore in detail in this chapter. An important aspect of fleeing behavior is the decision to stop (or at least pause) fleeing. This may occur if the prey perceives that the predator has given up the chase