Researchers looked at why some animals such as skunks use noxious scents as survival tactics while others use social groups.
"The idea is that we're trying to explain why certain antipredator traits evolved in some species but not others," Theodore Stankowich of California State University said in a University of California-Davis news release.
The study also "broke new ground" methodology that works to calculate and understand predations risks.
The researchers looked at data on 181 carnivore species, many were small and at risk of being devoured by other predators. The team conducted an elaborate comparison of every possible predator-prey combination taking into account "natural history factors" in order to "create a potential risk value that estimates the strength of natural selection due to predation from birds and other mammals," the news release reported.
The team found nocturnal animals were more likely to spray noxious scents because they are more vulnerable to other ground predators while animals active during the day favor social groups because their biggest threat tends to be birds of prey.
"Spraying is a good close-range defense in case you get surprised by a predator, so at night when you can't detect things far away, you might be more likely to stumble upon a predator," Stankowich said in the news release.
Smaller animals such as meerkats and mongooses are usually active during the day and on the lookout for hungry birds of prey. The animals live in large social groups for "more eyes on the sky," the news release reported. This allows them to detect threatening birds from a safe distance.
Social animals will often call out warnings to each other and will often work together to "mob" predators and scare them off by biting and scratching.
"The project was a major information technology undertaking involving plotting the geographic range overlap of hundreds of mammal and bird species, but will have long-term benefits for ongoing studies. The researchers plan to make their database, nicknamed the "Geography of Fear," available to other researchers," the news release reported.
