I’ve read already that when it comes to prey animals, the hunter is probably waiting for it to die or looking at their surroundings, and the prey animal is playing dead so it has slightly more chances of surviving or something similar.
But when it comes to bigger and stronger animals, why do they do this? Like, for example, a documentary video on youtube popped in my recommended with two bears fighting each other, first off they start “shouting” to each other, and then they fight, but after fighting for a while, they just both stop and look at each other, and one of them even has their neck open for an attack of the other bear, so it’s in a vulnerable position, still though, none of them attack nor do anything for quite some time.
I’ve seen this happen in documentaries and videos and stuff with a lot of other animals, not necessarily bears, so why do they do this?
In: Biology
Few animals fight to the death or even want to kill their opponent. It always carries some risk of an injury to the victor and that can cause infection or disability which would impact on the ability to feed or defend their territory against future interlopers. So fights generally end with one individual retreating. They will usually try and decide who is the stronger by threat, displaying or roaring for instance. If that doesn’t work and they do get to an actual fight, a pause in the action gives one or the other the chance to decide that they are against a stronger opponent and should end it now before they risk getting badly injured.
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