Regardless of whether we are faced by a bear, a lion, a cheetah or a hamster, a very important function lies on his mother - she feeds, protects and teaches the cub to survive in an environment full of dangers. Considering how animals teach their cubs to hunt and what methods they use for this, one can understand the highest wisdom in the relationship between adults and the younger generation. And even though relationships in a pack or family of some animals sometimes seem cruel to us, most often behind them is iron logic, which allows the whole family to survive.
How to learn to hunt meerkats
How animals teach their young to hunt, you can first consider the example of very charismatic animals belonging to the family of mongoose and living in southern Africa - meerkats.
The prey of these highly organized animals, always living in large families, is mainly large insects, chicks, snakes, and sometimes small rodents. And as soon as the meerkat cubs grow up so much that they need other food besides mother’s milk, adults take them on their first hunt.
True, at first, the kids only observe what the elders do, and the prey is already euthanized. But over time, they will be offered another living insect or rodent, so that a teenager can play with him and practice hunting skills. When a meerkat becomes an adult, he earns his own food on his own, carefully combing the hunting grounds with his family.
Wolves - Highly Organized Hunters
Very inventive and smart hunters are wolves. In order to better understand how animals teach their cubs to hunt, it is worthwhile to look closer at precisely these predators. Everyone knows that as a prey they choose weakened or sick animals, which are easier to overtake during a chase. But not only does this help forest orderlies during the hunt, they have plenty of ways to make it successful.
Wolves try to get close to the ungulate undetected. And during the rut, many cunning tactics are also used. For example, in the mountains they drive deer to a cliff, from which they do not dare to jump. And moose in the forest, wolves are sent to the snow covered with infusion, where these heavy ungulates simply fail, or to the ice-covered pond, on which the elk’s legs parted.
Their remarkable tactics of hunting a wolf pack are also evidenced by their tactics of enticing a formidable billhacker by one of the hunters, while others are approaching the young with impunity. And they successfully pass all this to the younger generation, which, incidentally, is touchingly taken care of by both the female and the male.
How Wolves Teach Cubs to Hunt
In order to teach the cubs to get their own food, adults take them on a hunt, giving the cubs the opportunity to watch it. But before this a lot of time should pass.
Puppies under the age of one year (they are called profitable) in the family are the youngest. Usually there are about 5 per flock, and they are in the full care of adults. Playing among themselves under the supervision of wolf cubs born last year (outbreaks), which remain in the 1-2 family, they develop their dexterity and strength. And the she-wolf, who returned from hunting, often brings them a strangled, but still alive mouse for training.
For the first time, wolves are on the hunt only at the age of six months, where, in conditions of strict discipline and reverence for elders, they learn all the intricacies of tracking and attack.
Features of education in cheetahs
And especially vivid examples of how animals teach their cubs to hunt can be seen in cheetahs. The female of this strong feline brings not a mouse to her babies, no! She drags them caught gazelles or antelopes, giving with the help of such a "visual aid" the opportunity to practice.
Still living prey is trying to escape, and the cubs catch up with her. Moreover, if the object of the hunt still manages to hide, then the students, "twosomes" are left without lunch. And the way animals teach calves to hunt is a very successful method, because it has a direct interest in the result. This is not just a game, but a struggle for food.
Cheetahs take their kittens for a real hunt at the age of four months. And they gradually become agile and dangerous predators. Although, of course, for a long time they will not be able to go on hunting without the help of adults.
Skill transfer is an important element of parenting
You can talk about how animals teach calves to hunt for a long time, especially since this happens in different ways in different species. But in most animals, it is the mother who shows the younger generation how to chew grass or hunt the mouse, in which situations it is worth entering into a fight, and when it is better to hide.
Kids hone their skills in games with each other, and parents (father often helps here), grabbing a flipped child by the withers, let him know when to stop.
Some animals, such as seals, abandon their cubs in the first days after birth. True, the latter have enough fat to survive for some time without food. And some abandon children gradually, simply going farther and farther during the hunt. So in the animal world there is another independent individual, which in the future will have to learn to hunt, and, therefore, to survive.