View allAll Photos Tagged predators
Here's the skull of the smallest mammal in America, a dwarf shrew, perched on the skull of one of the largest predators in the world - an Alaskan brown bear. The shrew is a fearsome predator of insects and other invertebrates, with tiny teeth typical of much larger meat eaters.
Our Daily Challenge(s): "Dwarfed" and "Teeth"
This Chevrolet Bigfoot Truck -Predator- is exhibited in the Kruse Automotive & Carriage Museum in Auburn, Indiana / USA.
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Dieser Chevrolet Bigfoot Truck -Predator- ist im Kruse Automotive & Carriage Museum in Auburn, Indiana / USA ausgestellt.
In our lives we all play both roles of predator and prey. I've been feeling particularly "preyed" on lately which upset me and I realized I don't have to just be someones victim...I'm also a hunter.
Another point along the Rock Harbor Trail at Isle Royale National Park. Isle Royale is a large, remote, isolated island near the northern shore of Lake Superior that should probably be part of Ontario instead of Michigan, but nobody remembered it was there when people were drawing up the maps they used to write the treaties. People--both Native and Euro American--have lived here on occasion, but since it was turned into a national park in 1940, the only people living here even part-time have been a few park rangers and a small number of scientific folks studying the predator-prey relationship between the island's moose and wolf populations.
It's that study that prompted me to go through all my Isle Royale pictures recently. Isle Royale's isolation made it possible to study the predator-prey relationship in a box, so scientists started watching in 1959. Scientists believe moose and wolves have coexisted on Isle Royale a number of times since the island emerged from the ice 11,000 years ago. One or the other population would cross onto the island from Ontario in the winter over ice and stay a while, then either die off or leave. Neither species was on the island when Euro-Americans showed up, though there was a population of caribou that has since gone extinct.
The forebears of the current moose population showed up around 1900, and they spent several decades eating the island bare. A few moose aren't going to have much impact on Isle Royale's vegetation, but the island's big enough to support a couple of thousand. By the middle of the 20th century, the island's fir forests had been decimated. And then the wolves showed up. The first wolves--likely just a single female and two males--crossed over around 1940, and for the next several decades they and their descendants enjoyed what must have seemed an endless feast of moose. There were about 20 wolves on the island when the study began in 1959. At their peak in 1980, there were fifty wolves, and the moose population was in sharp decline. There was some fear among the scientists that the wolves would eat the moose to extinction.
That's when wolf disaster hit, as canine panovirus (accidentally introduced by humans, of course) spread through the population. The wolves--all descended from that single female and two males--proved especially vulnerable to the virus, and by 1982 their number had dropped to 14. The disease passed, but the population never recovered. Inbreeding had weakened the population, and a long period of warm winters without significant ice kept new wolves from coming to the island. The last thirty years of island wolf history has been a long and painful decline.
For a while, things went the other way for the moose, whose numbers exploded to 2,500 by 1996. But then a combination of a lack of vegetation and an explosion in the population of a particular moose tick caused moose numbers to collapse to about 500 in the winter of 1996-1997. This collapse proved another set-back for the wolves, whose population was still fighting to recover from the virus. They suddenly had far fewer moose to eat, which was a second punch in the genetics.
By the time I took this picture in 2011, there were fewer than 10 wolves left on the island. It had become apparent that the wolves weren't going to recover on their own, and the National Park Service had started a vicious debate with itself over what, if anything to do about it.
More to come ...
The Tiger, Panthera tigris, is found throughout India in long grass, dense thickets, and sometimes tigers even venture into old ruins. Throughout the ages, tigers have been said to possess magical powers. I wanted to capture that myth with this image and ‘cast a spell’ on the viewer. This tiger’s enchanting expression actually gave me the inspiration for my entire “Eyes of Nature” collection.
These strange larvae lay among the aphids (they are hoverfly larvae, thanks to Eddie for ID). As I watched, they caught and fed on them - this aphid waved its legs as apparently its guts were sucked out. I haven't suffered too much from aphid infestations this year, in part due to the help of predators like these, controlling the population. Note the baby aphid on the underside of the one being eaten, and the blob of orange wax, extruded as a defence.
Canon EOS 5D mark III, Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x, Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT (handheld, 3x? magnification).
65mm, f/11, 1/200, ISO 1600 (ETTL +1EV).
Pronghorn antelope are the fastest runners in North America, far fleeter than deer, elk, buffalo or horses. The puzzling aspect of pronghorn is that they are so much faster than the wolves, coyotes, and mountain lions that hunt them. They can run for miles at 40 to 45 mph, and they have been clocked at 60 mph. At high speeds their strides are 14 to 24 feet, and their gait is beautifully smooth.
We can only understand the extraordinary speed of pronghorn if we look back into history, at the community of predators that shaped the pronghorn’s speed and endurance. Our modern pronghorn is adapted to run away from cheetahs, which hunted by chasing at high speed for moderate distances. Our modern pronghorn is an anachronism; its keen eyesight, unsurpassed endurance and flashing speed all greatly exceed what is needed to escape modern predators. The pronghorn is still prepared to outrun the cheetahs that went extinct ten millennia ago.
AvP: Alien Vs. Predator - Afternoon Abominations - Unmasking the Horror Tour - Universal Orlando Halloween Horror Nights 24 - Universal Orlando - Orlando, FL
Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Nanyuki, Kenya
The males are often social and may group together for life, usually with their brothers in the same litter; although if a cub is the only male in the litter then two or three lone males may form a group, or a lone male may join an existing group. These groups are called coalitions. In one Serengeti, 41% of the adult males were solitary, 40% lived in pairs and 19% lived in trios.
The auto-destruct countdown from the movie "Predator". Actually, this is the busted floor display on our office elevator, sideways. :-P
0325-338-22
Atop the sign for Stonehedge Lodge in Donegal Township, PA stands a steel Predator look alike.