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.
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