Why do some animals kill their prey before eating and some start eating them alive? Killing them should make the eating process easier, no?
In: Biology
Everything an animal does is because it’s what’s best for its survival.
Hyenas are hungry buddies, but they’re not very strong. They can kill smaller prey easily, but they don’t have the strength to just take down a big animal, and they don’t have the patience to wait for the animal to be tired on their own, so they’ll attack it and take some bites out of it, which in turn injures the animal and slows them down and makes them exhausted faster, making it even easier to eat them.
A wild cat that likes to eat cute rodent friends is going up against very small, very fast creatures, so it’s much more in their interest to kill their target so they can’t escape and hide.
A lizard’s got a big mouth, and the crickets she likes to eat are tiny little things. The moment its jaw snaps shut, it’s going to crush that little bug, ending its existence.
It should also be of note that most wild animals pretty much do just eat their prey alive. Even constrictor snakes won’t always wait for their target to be fully dead before they decide to take a bite, kind of like how sometimes half baked cookies are tastier than fully baked ones (or maybe that’s just me). Killing doesn’t inherently make it easier to eat your prey, especially if you can easily overpower it.
Most animals I think do not have time to sit while the animal dies. Other animals can see what’s going on and will try to take what you just caught.
Imagine you’re having dinner. Some people like to cook their food first before eating it, right? It’s like that for some animals too—they prefer to kill their food before munching on it. It’s safer and easier that way. But for other animals, they just start eating right away, kind of like how you might snack on chips without cooking them. It all depends on what works best for each animal and their way of hunting and eating.
They just need the minimum effort to incapacitate, and not necessarily kill. If prey is no longer going to get up or fight back, the jobs done.
Killing would be the easier thing to do and not have to worry about thrashing legs or something, but maybe it’s not a big deal and they don’t have the ability to think it out like us.
They really wouldn’t know and don’t have the cognition to care.
Simba: “I’m hungry Nala, what the heck are you doing?”
Nala: “Checking for a pulse…”
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