It seems counterintuitive, you’re just making yourself more easily accessible to the predator and you’re giving them an easy meal. Can someone explain the logic behind playing dead and how effective the strategy is?
In: Biology
First, not all threats want to eat you–some will just attack because *they* consider *you* a threat. But if they think you’re dead, they no longer see you as a threat and will leave you alone.
Second, not all predators are carrion eaters. If they don’t hunt down and kill their own prey, they might not consider the dead prey to be suitable food and will ignore it.
And third, some animals do not have suitable defenses, against certain predators. If you play dead, maybe it won’t rush over and eat you and will become distracted (perhaps by a rival predator), giving you time to escape. Think of a gazelle playing dead to a lion–if a pack of hyenas shows up to challenge the lion, maybe the gazelle can run away, in the chaos.
Does defecating while acting dead play a factor?
The effectiveness varies greatly depending on the predator. Already-dead animals can be rotting and/or contain parasites. This can be dangerous to eat if you’re not equipped to deal with it. Because of this, some predators will not eat dead meat that they didn’t just kill themselves. If that’s the case, playing dead gives you a chance of the predator deciding you’re unsafe to eat and leaving.
Because it works.
My cat is pretty good at catching magpies. It’s quite impressive to see, for the exact opposite of a reason that cats can be impressive.. He lies down on the patio table and pretends to sleep. Or actually sleep, and pretend not to wake up. Eventually the magpies volunteer one in the crew who gets to hop over and see if the fierce hunter beast is dead yet so that they can pick it’s bones.
And that’s when he eventually ends the game. By catching the magpie. Jaw to the throat-style.
It worked several times, and then the magpies figured it out. *The bloody cat is pretending to be dead Don’t go near him.*
Anyway. Just a few minutes later, when he wanders around with his newfound prey in his jaws, the magpie pretends to be dead, too.
And cats *hate* prey that dies before they get a chance to play with it. And just toss them to the ground and wonder if it’s edible at all, when it’s not moving. Try to nudge it a bit with a paw, just to see what happens.
A few seconds later, the magpie flies away, when the cat for a flimsy second is not paying attention.
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