MOST predatory animals are elementary mathematicians it seems. A Japanese
scientist suggests that maths can explain how stalking predators, from cheetahs
to jumping spiders or praying mantises, maximise their chances of a kill by
attacking at just the right moment.
Shigeo Yachi from the Center for Ecological Research at Kyoto University in
Otsu, wondered how predators decided when to attack, considering that each day
the same animal may have to hunt different kinds of prey, in groups of varying
sizes, across ever-changing types of vegetation cover.
According to his mathematical model, predators follow a basic rule at each
step of…
