Fight monsters along the way and upgrade the life of some apex predators, occupying different ecolog

Mondo Science Updated on 2024-01-28

Enter a game, pinch your face to create a character you are satisfied with, and then start the road of fighting monsters and leveling up from slimes and goblins outside the novice village. As you get stronger, look for stronger prey.

Most of the game environments are so friendly. If you refer to the real world, it has to be in every mapThe apex predator of the hierarchy stands at the top of the ecological niche and defies everything.

The apex predators also have children, they grow up little by little to fight monsters and upgrade, and slowly become stronger?

Our instincts would be to take the path to the next level for granted, and that there must be a positive correlation between predator and prey quality – both minimum and maximum prey sizes increase as predator size increases.

But, for terrestrial carnivorous mammals, birds,"Fight monsters to level up"It is very rare.

The reason is also simple - because mammals and birds are in the juvenile stage, they are cared for by their parents for a long time, or the adults in the group are responsible for hunting until the young reach adulthood.

By the time land carnivorous mammals and birds stand on their own, they can handle almost all the prey on the menu, and all they lack is experience.

The path of escalation is very common in invertebrates, fish, amphibians, and especially reptiles, and it is extremely obvious.

For example, crocodiles and Komodo dragons, giants and apex predators that sweep through armies in their respective environments, hatch from eggs as small individuals, and are lucky enough to survive to adulthood, growing in size by orders of magnitude during their life cycles.

Tiny crocodiles, little Komodo dragons initially target insects, then turn to rodents, and eventually munch on large mammals.

There are also Tyrannosaurus rexes that need to be upgraded by fighting monsters.

Tyrannosaurus rex was a large carnivorous dinosaur, and as the largest land predator ever created, the Tyrannosaurus rex was born with a juvenile about a meter long and gradually grew into several tons (9 to 12 meters long, 2000 to 6000 kilograms).

Juvenile specimens are slender with narrow skulls, bladed teeth, and elongated hind limbs, while adult specimens are athletic, with large skulls and thick teeth capable of crushing bones.

These significant morphological changes suggest that the Tyrannosaurus rex underwent a major ontogenetic dietary shift, and we already know that the Tyrannosaurus rex typically fed on large herbivores – species weighing > 1000 kilograms, such as ceratosaurus, giant ornithosaurus, duck-billed dinosaurs, and sauropods.

So what did a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex eat?

It is certain that many years ago, the comic "Little Dinosaur Agung", which became popular with his painting skills, in which a little dinosaur kills all sides, is just entertainment.

A juvenile tyrannosaurus rex specimen from the Upper Cretaceous in Alberta, Canada, reveals the tip of the iceberg: there are two in its abdominal cavity"Chicken thighs"- Hind limbs of two small sauropod theropods (oviraptorosauria).

Hunting large herbivores as a child, this hypothesis is much less likely. It seems that you still have to bully the small ones.

And, despite the small size of their prey, the juvenile tyrannosaurus rex did not swallow the carcass whole, but selectively dismembered each prey to swallow the muscular hind limbs.

Interestingly, this feeding habit is consistent with that of most crocodile species in existence, usually eating the hindquarters and guts first.

For carnivorous predators, risk assessment is very important. At the same time, there is a term in biology called energy balance - the energy spent on capturing the prey, and the energy provided by the prey, cannot be used to make ends meet.

For us ordinary people, these seems"Nothing to use"The knowledge reflects a truth: in life, if you are bullied, remember to fight with him and fight back with all your might, so that you will not be easily and repeatedly.

Of course, the cat is talking about the inevitable situation.

Animals will first use camouflage, mimicry, exaggerated movements, defensive structures, huddles, and many other ways to avoid conflict. After these, running away is the normal response, and in many cases it is the optimal solution.

Because of this, the cat never understood the choice of suicide because of being bullied. Even if you are really desperate, you can refer to the Malaysian ** ant (colobopsis saundersi), when fighting to despair, the worker ant will violently contract its abdominal muscles and detonate two oversized, venom-filled glands - self-detonation for the (ant) social pest.

The author thanks for your interest (-

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