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Sand pipers pretend to have a broken wing to get people away from the nest of babies. It's heroic and cute mothering.
The cat I had when I was a kid would pretend to be afraid and confused by birds then SWIPE out comes the paw, down goes the bird.
I don't keep outside cats anymore but it was always so impressive to see her hunt, she did fake cringe away to get them close.
In Asia I watched cats hunt snakes. No idea they did that.
Football player.
Yes, it can be considered part of aggressive mimicry.
Most examples are pretending to be another animal that is prey but the assassin bug example is interesting...
S. bituberus approaches the web and then uses its forelimbs to pluck the silk to attract the spider towards them, until they are close enough to strike (Wignall and Taylor, 2010). The experiments carried out by Wignall and Taylor (2010) show that S. bituberus does not mimic the full range of prey vibrations but instead is a general mimic, able to replicate a set of vibration queues that sit within the range of vibrations that a spider identifies as a prey.
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Some birds feign injury to lure predators away from their nest (and the eggs/young inside,) but this isn’t to attack them, it’s to distract the predator. Once they’re away form the nest they fly off.
But no, no prey goes out looking for predators and then attacks them.
Most prey will only be aggressive if the predator comes into their space. Large mammals typically respond with aggression- buffalo, elephants, other cows. Horses. They’re all more than capable of killing individual predators- which is why wolves or lions will only go after them in larger packs or prides.
Killdeer are notorious for this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killdeer#Responses_to_predators
It mildly amuses me to be walking and a killdeer pretending to debilitated hobbling in front of me with a ""broken wing"" until I'm far enough from the nest (that I never saw or looked for) that it takes flight and heads out.
Yes, the worst animal of all: humans
Not prey, but coyotes will send one packmate out to trick a dog into following it to the rest of the pack. Kind of like the assassin bug in the earlier examples I guess.
Yes. My ex.
Is your ex my ex?
Very likely. She got around.
Wouldn't that make them a predator and not prey? Usually in the food chain, an animal that is a predator wouldn't be the prey of it's prey.
Exceptions might exist, some people could probably answer better than me
Edit: google says there are, like Jaguars and Anacondas, Pike and Perch, as well as Spiders and Ants. Interesting!
Edit 2: https://www.bbcearth.com/news/meet-the-fakers-of-nature
Apparently some animals mimic prey animals to lure predators who become their prey 🤔
it would be weird for something that's never a predator to seek out a predation event. getting into fights for no apparent reason generally doesn't end well. Eventually your luck runs out.
there are animals that seek out confrontation aggressively- like elephants will chase down lions that threaten their kids, but it would be surprising for even a pride of lions to take out an adult elephant.
This is what I told myself when I lost track of the big spider in my room last night
Prey-dators
Sort of. See Distraction Display
Dogs have been documented to feign injury to manipulate people.
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2026
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