Some Ways of Self-Preservation Among Animals

Canadian porcupine.

        Small or large, feeble or strong, most animals that might be food for others, at one time or another are beset by their enemies and obliged to protect themselves. The ways in which they do so are many and varied - some animals try only to avoid or be avoided by an attacker, others rely on suits of armor, and still others put to good use whatever weapon they possess that will injure and drive the enemy away.
       Some kinds of avoidance defenses may take their owners far out of reach of danger. Though rabbits have sharp teeth which they use when all else has failed, they usually depend for protection on the long hind legs that carry them as if by seven-league boots to the nearest hole or cover. Other animals can sometimes give themselves more time in which to escape by using devices that slow up the pursuer. Thus the squid, the underwater speedboat of the ocean, holds within its body a sac filled with black dye and when enemies are too close for an easy getaway, one squirt of inky fluid into the water makes a screen, behind the shadow of which the animal spurts away. Some of the long-tailed lizards that live in the southern part of the United States have an even more unusual way of baffling their enemies, for when one is pursued it can, with no harm to itself, leave behind the still wriggling hind end of its tail for the attacker to examine, and in the meanwhile dart off to safety.
       Certain animals are so well outfitted that they neither run away nor fight, but still can remain fairly safe wherever they may happen to be. A long-legged spider crab that lives near the shores of the Florida coast, plucks bits of sponge or algae from the ocean floor and transplants them to the knobs and spines atop its back. Under the shelter of this flourishing garden it can go about quite secure on its own hunt for food. A few other animals need not try to disguise themselves; the snail, for one, slides back into the labyrinth of its shell or house whenever it is sufficiently threatened; the turtle jerks its head, tail, and legs into the space between the tough bony flooring and roof that case its body. The most efficient arrangement of any is that of the three-banded armadillo from Argentina and Brazil, for it is the only one of its family able to roll into a ball and so present to its enemies a hard slippery surface that few teeth can either grasp or dent.
       Many animals, particularly those which the meat-eaters hunt out for food, defend themselves by painfully injuring their enemies. One of their weapons - feet - takes on an assortment of shapes in various animals, for the hard hoof of a horse or the two strong toes of the African ostrich can both give powerful kicks, and the stout nails of the anteater can as easily rip apart dogs as termite nests. Many of the animals with hooves also wear a set of head-pieces and though these are sometimes nothing more than ornaments, many of them are well used against foes or rivals. Instead of such horns or antlers, the peccaries, South American relatives of the pigs, carry long side teeth as bayonets.
       One animal, the porcupine, with very little effort can dole out quite as much misery and discomfort as all the teeth, feet, and horns of others together. Spread over the upper parts of its body is a long hair matting run through with quills, and each of these is roughened at its point with small barbs or hooklets. The nose or paw of an unwary dog has only to touch the bristly body to be pierced with stick-tight quills. Few animals, once having attacked and survived, will try a porcupine again. Elizabeth Best

How does the rattlesnake keep from being
stepped on?

More Animal Self Defense:

• Animal Defense Against Predators - Wildlife Defense
• 3rd to 5th grade: Animal Defenses
• 20 Fatal Ways Animals Protect Themselves