Comments on: Predator-Prey Poetry!

By: bobby

bobby — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:02:47 +0000

this is a great poem. the way that the ryhmes show that the predator and prey basically dance is very cool. i found the predation theory in my research. the predation theory says that all living organisms eat a part or whole of an animal.
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/predation/predation.html

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:32:18 +0000

Karisa’s poem was really great and I enjoyed the poetry- science mix. I also really loved Anna’s game; it was actually really fun and informative! I think that brought up an excellent point, humans do have a preditermined ideas of their ‘predators’. Meanwhile, humans are really the predators killing off the sharks.
Here is a great poem by Justin P. Lambert:
http://www.justinplambert.net/1/post/2009/12/new-poem-predators-prey.html

By: Anna

Anna — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:05:04 +0000

I thought Karisa’s poem was very informative on predators and their prey. While researching predator – pray relationships I learned that it is important in maintaining balance between different animal species. Without predators, certain species of prey would drive other species to extinction through competition. Without prey, there would be no predators. I found a website that has a game where you are given the name of an animal and a list of its possible predators or prey. You then have to decide which animals are or are not the selected animal’s predator or prey. Try this game its fun and you will be very surprised who’s the predator or who’s the pray.

http://biology.about.com/library/weekly/blpop1q.htm

By: Amy

Amy — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:57:29 +0000

I really enjoyed Karisa’s poem. After listening to it, I wanted to research some predator and prey relationships. One relationship that I found interesting was the relationship between the Galapagos tortoises and the cactus plant. The tortoises are the predator and the plant is the prey because the tortoises eat the branches of the cactus plant. One interesting point about this relationship is that where there are short branches, there are tortoises with short necks and where there are tall branches, there are tortoises with longer necks. This is because the cactus plant has evolved higher branches so the tortoises cannot eat them.
http://necsi.org/projects/evolution/co-evolution/pred-prey/co-evolution_predator.html

By: Sam

Sam — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:24:10 +0000

Good poem Karisa! I was reading through the comments after I watched this video and I thought Vasiliki’s comment about the sharks was interesting. Then I read Joe’s comment that was very informative and made me realize that sharks act as humans do and attack when they are fearful or threatened. I decided to look up some more great white shark tactics on finding food and killing weaker sea life. A key component that sharks use to get food are their senses. There most important one is their sensory organs that are called ampullae and Lorenz-ini. These organs are found in the great white shark’s snout. Sharks can smell the smallest amounts of blood from up to 5 km away. Great whites also use their camouflage skin color to their advantage when searching for food. When attacking the meat, great whites use their large bodies to overpower the prey and then their multiple rows of teeth to devour the prey and enjoy it’s meal. To find more information on these significant animals and how predators use their senses, size and teeth to their advantage against their prey visit this website:
http://www.extremescience.com/zoom/index.php/life-in-the-deep-ocean/62-great-white-shark

By: Joseph

Joseph — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:37:40 +0000

That was a great poem. It caught the reader’s attention because it rhymed, but at the same time gave you information on predators and prey. I agree with Guy and Vasiliki. There are in fact many great debates on this subject. Typical stereotypes make us conclude that certain animals are predators and certain animals are prey. I will use Vasiliki’s example that says: last year, seven humans killed by sharks. Last year, one hundred million sharks were killed by humans. Really, who is the predator. If you think about it and look at the facts, you will see that we are. Movies like Jaws and Deep Blue Sea gear our minds toward thinking that whenever a shark sees a human, it will eat it. In fact, sharks do not attack humans for the sole purpose of hunger. They can go months without eating. Sharks only attack when they feel intimidated or fear. The main purpose sharks attack humans is an accident. They mainly attack surfer, who look like seals or sea lions, and divers in black suits who look like other prey. Nice poem Karisa
http://scuba-doc.com/shrks.htm

By: Guy

Guy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:21:15 +0000

I thought that was a great poem. I agree with Deanna, I thought the poem was very well written and very informative. I think there is great debates between what is consider prey and predator. A good organization method of predator and prey is the food chain and food pyramids. Food webs are also a great way to classify predator and prey. Here is a great website to check out food webs, and pyramids http://www.vtaide.com/png/foodchains.htm. For example a lion would be on top of the food pyramid in Africa, than under a lion would be gazelles, at the bottom would be vegetation life that the gazelles would eat. Great post.

By: Carl

Carl — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:05:50 +0000

Listening to Karisa’s poem, I thought back to when Miss Baker was teaching us about the evolutionary roles between predator and prey. She told us that the organisms within a species that have a specific trait which is useful for keeping safe from the predator will survive, while those who don’t have this quality will die. After a while the entire population of this species will have this trait; however, the predator will evolve as well. In the population of the predator species, those organisms with a trait that can allow them to counter-act against the prey’s new traits will get food and survive, while those who don’t will not be able to hunt food and die of starvation. Soon all of the predator population will have this trait. This means that the prey is taking one step ahead of the predator, only to find that the predator took that step with it.
Sources:
Miss Baker

By: Vasiliki

Vasiliki — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:13:48 +0000

I found this poem interesting and easy to understand the roles of predators and prey and thought I should research it more. This article: http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/predation/predation.html
talks about how predators and prey affect their population. The way they could keep their population up and not go extinct is to mate and make offspring before they get eaten. An animal eats another animal, makes offspring, and gets eaten. The animal’s offspring go through the same cycle.

By: Deanna

Deanna — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:06:51 +0000

I thought Karisa’s poem was very informative on predators and their prey. She depicted the relationship predators have with their prey, and the adaptations the prey use to help them survive to reproduce. Some examples mentioned in Karisa’s poem were camouflage, anosmatic coloration, and mimicry. I decided to research some organisms that use anosmatic coloration strategy to protect themselves from their prey. This site I found (http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/poison-frog.html) explained how the poison dart frog protects themselves. Poison dart frogs come from the Dendrobatidae family. Their bright colors are used as a defensive tactic to ward off their predators.