Data from: Prey movement, size, and glossiness interact to impact praying mantid attack behaviours

When moving, animals are vulnerable to predation because movement can
rapidly attract the attention of a predator. To reduce the risk of
predation while moving, animals can use a variety of different strategies
(e.g., erratic movement, colouration). These strategies often work in
combination or may be influenced by other prey characteristics (e.g.,
size), but few studies have explored these interactions. Here, we
investigate how movement trajectory (linear or erratic), prey size (small
or large), and prey colouration (glossy or matte) interact to impact
attack behaviour of giant rainforest mantids (Hierodula majuscula). We
presented mantids with 3D animations of moving targets and filmed their
response with a high-speed camera. As expected, mantids were more likely
to track large than small targets and targets moving linearly than
erratically. Counterintuitively, however, mantids were quicker to strike
at erratically moving targets, perhaps because they more closely resembled
preferred prey. When mantids attacked the target, their accuracy was
influenced by the interaction of target trajectory and glossiness. As
predicted, mantids had larger attack errors (i.e. lower accuracy) toward
erratically moving glossy targets compared to linearly moving glossy
targets or erratically moving matte targets. However, contrary to our
prediction that linearly moving matte targets would be easiest to capture,
these targets also elicited large attack errors, similar to those recorded
for erratically moving glossy targets. Together, our results demonstrate
that anti-predator tactics for prey in motion may interact in complex
ways, and simple experimental scenarios may overlook context-dependent
effects that emerge when multiple factors interact.