Why there is no such thing as a migratory carnivore
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- Опубликовано: 3 июл 2024
- Welcome to Exploring the Bio-edge!
In this podcast, we propose that carnivores fail to migrate with their ungulate prey because of energetic, not reproductive, limitations.
Check out our post about this topic on our blog: explorebioedge.com/2013/07/30...
For more fascinating writings from Dr Milewski: www.inaturalist.org/journal/m...
Credits:
Thumbnail image: Migrating wildebeest in the Serengeti by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen (bjornfree.com/galleries.html, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...)
Music: 'At the side of an RPG village' by Katzen_Tupas via Pixabay 
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How did I get here? Anyway, you're wrong. Many packs of grey wolves move seasonally tracking caribou herds in the Arctic and equines and camelids in Asia. And the arctic fox also appears to migrate to track the khulan.
I think what you mean is that TERRESTRIAL PREDATORS IN RELATIVELY PRODUCTIVE ENVIRONMENTS don't migrate, but that's not a very surprising observation.
Another observation argues against your interpretation, and that's that GPS tracking of chase predators like grey wolves and African painted dogs show that they move more each day than their prey do.
Again, I'm not sure how I got here, maybe because RUclips is trying to feed me human carnivore baloney and some of the commenters seem to believe that stuff. But what matters most in this equation is how productive the environment is. In productive environments like Africa, there is enough prey to feed the pack without migrating. That's not true in some areas of the Arctic or in the high arid plains of Mongolia.
And especially when you're talking about ambush predators like big cats, they're not energetically efficient at moving over distance anyway. It has nothing to do with their source of cellular energy. They have too much musculature in their limbs, it takes a lot of work to walk compared to animals with highly-reduced forelimbs like ungulates and canids. It's the same reason why gorillas would never undertake long migrations: in both cases, it takes too much work to cover lots of ground.
Yes, that are valid points. But it's an interesting fact, that mammal predators always have rather undeveloped offspring. I think, that's the mammalian norm. Ungulata managed to evade this trap for reasons we don't know.
Maybe it's not "migration" in the truest sense. But polar bears spend the winter months on the pack ice, hunting seals and beluga whales. In the summer, they go to the shore to hunt whatever they can find, along with berries and whatnot. Basically, predators follow the food.
thats a good one
And of course, Beluga whales and seals are animals with large amounts of fat in their bodies which makes them a much better energy source than a wildebeest would be.
yep, i m migratory too, i go to the burger king during the day, and pizza hut during the dinner. Sometimes i travel to another town and eat at other burger king.
I migrate like the nomadic people who followed their herds.
Birds migrate. Killer whales migrate.
Add grey whales and arctic tern to the list.
Early humans followed the herds and wiped out much of the megafauna. Another advantage for us!
I know, right? I hear the Neanderthals told us to knock it off, and look what happened to *them* ...
The combination of cooking and being omnivorous are the reason we were able to pull that off. We could both choose a wider variety of food while also improving the energy efficiency of any food we did find.
That's a total myth that isn't even possible
@@highjenks3d What part? Some tribes in america migrated with animals
Says your favorite paleontologist... that's an opinion with limited to no evidence
Lions, spotted hyenas, wolves, mountain lions and leopards will all migrate to follow their prey.
Now do one about why carnivores don't have horns!
Or hooves. I want my hooved carnivores back.
Horns don't help catch prey. They help ward away enemies, not capture them.
Some predatory dinosaurs owned horns.
Man is migratory, when offered the opportunity
This is a similar argument, that Vets in Australia make, about why you don't feed your pets Kangaroo meat. While the pets love it, they will become fussy and refuse to eat other food which contains the fats they need. Food that they would get in the wild by eating the animals entrails but not sold by the local butcher.
they will eventually give up and eat their normal food again
I spent quite a while wondering who has pet kangaroos, why you would feed them meat, and why they would become fussy.
Eventually it clicked.
Someone already mentioned territory in another context. It takes effort and persistent presence to keep your piece of real estate (which is usually very closely bordered by some other predators' pack). This seems way more prevalent to them as following a specific type of prey. However you do see migration. It's just that it is from individuals seeking opportunities where no fellow groups are home to yet. As western Europeans can tell you since wolves are returning to where they have been extinct until recently.
Why do you call them fatty ions btw?
Interesting though.
I'd say also predators are territorial and will defend that territory against intruders. So to follow a herd there would be conflict at every few miles with resident predators.
I think his point is, while evolution can solve problems like that, it can't do anything about the thermodynamic differences between ruminants and carnivores. Evolutionary pressures could, as he stated push altricial/sedentary young to be more precocial/mobile. I think they could overpower territorial disputes too; fighting off a few rivals trying to follow a herd through your territory might be doable, but if those rivals end up numbering in the dozens or hundreds, and if they're all better fed than you since they stay with the herd, you'll eventually lose a fight and/or give up your territory and also start following the herd. In contrast, the thermodynamic and metabolic differences between carnivores and migratory herbivores are too fundamental to be overcome by such selective pressures
@@bluequiltedness O think most predators are hard wired to maintain a territorial behavior and don’t move off it much.
@@PilgrimBangs It'd be a tug-of-war between staying on your turf and following the smell of prey. Other comments are pushing back on the "carnivores don't migrate" thesis though - saying arctic wolves follow caribou for example
It's an interesting observation, especially looking st the energy balance. Bears do follow the Caribou, but bears are omnivores. Same with pigs and people. There are some exceptions, since life is both creative and diverse. But it's interesting. Thanks.
While Bears and People are Omnivores, they're also Apex Predators so I think they should count.
Killer whales migrate
@@wellhellothere6347 the guy literally said terrestial, aka land carnivore in the video.
Oh, made sense after watching but first considered what marine biologists would say. So mammals spend time and resources in the young whereas fish play the lottery every generation
What about toothed whales? Maybe they are not migratory?
He did say he was only talking about land animals. Only the most adventurous whales go onto land.
*Deviljho has entered the chat*
What about Grizzly and Black Bears that travel hundreds of miles every year to only return every fall to the same Salmon fishing spot on the same river every fall. Of use, to the bear, is that their winter hibernation site is invariably near by. Or do they only mean African Terrestrial Carnivore. Or because a Bear in an Omnivore that does not count either.
Herbivores are adapted to roam and run from carnivores, which are adapted to hunt.
Either you spend energy roaming, or hunting, as it would be costlier, energetically, to do both.
Some herbivores are highly intelligent, others seem less. The greater the herd, the less intelligent they seem, maybe as they can rely more on numbers than individual intelligence for chances of survival.
The less intelligent, trained and sophisticated an animal needs to be, the shorter it takes to raise them, and the sooner they can roam with their herd.
The thing is: carnivores can afford the time to raise the young, staying in their territory, because they still find enough prey, which is interesting to consider. How is that, and also how do carnivores manage, as they grow up, to move away, looking for a territory of their own, while hunting to survive, often alone.
Same reason you order delivery instead of going to get it, yourself?
what about us. seem like the native americans followed the buffalo ( i might be wrong as my info is not from facts but from my mind) but we are animal's and i mostly eat meat. and coffee
I don't think they actually kept up with the herds until the advent of horse culture. I could be wrong.
We are Omnivores, not Carnivores.
This question popped into my mind years ago. Thanks!
Very interesting never really thought of it as a problem. Anywhere there's reproducing populations of predatory mammals there has to be prey year round in one form or another anyways. Lions take Buffalo, arctic wolves eat voles, coastal brown bears eat grass. Though the last one doesn't work it fits.
Army ants are terrestrial carnivores that migrate ... so maybe the textbooks are trying to avoid mentioning falsehoods.
Moreover, I would like to point out how overwhelmingly erroneous the *title* to this video is. The title states that "there is no such thing as a migratory carnivore." The first line of the video *backpedals* to limit it to "terrestrial carnivores that migrate with their prey."
Moreover, for each of the carnivores that you mentioned, you did not conduct an *exhaustive* examination of every species of prey they consume. If some of the carnivore's prey migrates, and some does not, why are you only focusing on the prey that travels?
Some birds migrate far and eat meat in the form of bugs and worms. They’re not apex carnivores, but they could be considered carnivores.
Terrestrial.
@@Floki.357 Clickbait title.
Thanks a lot for sharing!
Humans are a realy scary pradator. its the conclusion i made.
very interesting, never thought about that but the explanation makes sense
That's a good point , attenbough never brought this up, dam him, take that sir away 😳
Golden eagles migrate
There's one... humans.
Evolution seems to favor a beautiful balance.
Ever hear of Humans?
Sure, but humans are Omnivores, not Carnivores.
@@wellhellothere6347 Never met my brother.
@@wellhellothere6347 Though Carnivora is a taxon for species classification, no such equivalent exists for omnivores.
very interesting.
humans do so you are overstating, Hiow id they get to woyrl wide states like cats and dogs and there ancestors.
Peregrine falcon
sharks migrate
Aside from humans and orcas.
Humans are omnivores
@chrisrubin6445 No, we are carnivores.
@@chrisrubin6445 wrong, lol.
@@ohstyleebrecht a square is a square, and it is also a rectangle. Ill wait for you to be able to put 2 and 2 together.
@@JapanischErfahren I am human, I eat fruits, vegetables, grains, and meat. Care to elaborate your point friend? or just trolling?
There are any number of carnivorous birds that migrate.
Whales also migrate, and eat animals. (But they are not terrestrial animals.)
@@lizblock9593 do they really? I’ve never heard of it or seen it. A quick google indicates the word is used for raptors in a different sense to mass migration across climates
Birds aren't terrestrial.
@@whydoesthismatter It just says carnivore, not terrestrial carnivore.
@wellhellothere6347 you didn't pay attention to the video.
I bet early humans were migratory carnivores.
Bison, wildebeest, zebras, ... I don't think early humans kept up with the migrations of these creatures. But they could probably keep up with elephants and some other megafauna. The advent of the domesticated horse changed that equation, I think.
Early humans were absolutely not carnivores.
@@GrThDo literally the apex predators in almost everywhere they were but you think they can't be classified as carnivores?.
@@harrymills2770 Humans should have been able to carry their young even if in fabric or skin and are famous for being essentially the best marathon running animal so I am willing to bet some humans did it.
But yeah, I have to agree that the archeological evidence in Mesopotamia and historic evidence in The Great Plains don't support this.
Nope, Omnivores.
What about Transient Killer Whales? There main food is seals and sea lions. Ergo Carnivores and they migrate over huge distances, far greater that the "resident" killer whales (salmon eaters) do not. Ooops fish eaters are considered Carnivores. If you mean there are no such thing as a LAND migratory carnivore. Also shrimp and krill eaters are considered Carnivores. ALL whales eat shrimp or krill and definitely migrate. All Salmon species also eat either fish or shrimp AND have a definite yearly migration cycle. Shall I go on,? Those are just off the top of my head.
I believe "terrestrial" carnivore means land animals in this context.
He said terrestrial bro
@@davidec.4021 The heading is what you stand on :- "Why there is no such thing as a migratory carnivore" Do not change horses in mid stream. The carnivores might get you.
Man is or was the only predator that was migratory which gave man the advantage over the other predators
Whales migrate and eat animals
what about PIGS ??? forgot that one + there are more + dogs + some marsupials
Fascinating. Makes me think that the way of peace is always the superior way of life, except where social environments are super hostile
All (or almost all?) animals are heterotrophs, ie they need to eat other organisms to survive. Unlike most plants, which don't need to consume other organisms.
Are you saying that the way of the plant is superior to the way of the animal?
Hard to compare. Plants go to war more indirectly though, finding ways to out grow and shade each other for example. You can’t really define superiority objectively across all dimensions of reality - there’s pros and cons to every variation.
But the older I get the more I suspect we’ve become the dumbest animal on earth because of how numb and unconscious our technology has made us