SURVIVAL TECHNIQUES IN THE ANIMAL WORLD

Domestic animals like cats, dogs and sheep have been trained to become man’s friends. They are harmless and do not attack man, their benefactor, who gives them food, shelter and protection. Some animals, which are not really domestic, have been trained to live with man as pets, for example, birds and monkeys, even snakes and bears.
Animals which live in freedom in the woods may harm people. To survive they have to attack other animals and defend themselves against other animals. For this purpose a tiger has strong teeth, and clows with nails as sharp as knives. A rhinoceros has one or two sharp horns with which it attacks other animals, or occasionally, human beings.
Some animals, however, like the antelope and the ostrich depend on speed. Others depend on a very good sense of smell. They can smell their prey or their enemy at a great distance. Some birds, like the eagle, have very keen sight. Dogs bark at what they think are their enemies in the hope of frightening them. This is an example of bluff, or psychological warfare.
Chemical warfare is also found in the animal world. For instance, the cuttlefish when attacked, ejects an ink like liquid behind which it can hide. Snakes use poison to kill their enemies. Animals which have neither teeth nor claws, neither speed nor any chemical weapon, use camouflage to survive. They have the same colour as their surroundings, or they can change their colour to match their background. In that way, they are not easily seen by their enemies.
Compared with survival techniques of other animals, the human animal seems practically defenceless. In fact, however, he possesses the most powerful means of offence of defence : his brain. Man has the ability to think. With this ability he can think of ways to defend himself, or to escape from his enemies. He can make weapons to attack even the fiercest animal in the forest, or the smallest disease-causing bacteria, which is invisible to the naked eye, but which is not too small for the human brain to detect.