Page 27 - (DK) Danger! Open with Extreme Caution!

HONEYBEES
When thousands of buzzing bees pour out of a hive
to swirl in the air like an angry striped cloud, they aren’t
coming after you… they’re just moving to a new house.
Bees swarm when they run out of honey storage space.
The queen bee and the gang may swarm on a tree branch
while bee scouts look for a good place to build a new hive.

AFRICAN wild DOGS
Roaming the plains and woodlands of
Africa in a family pack, these wild dogs
have colorful markings, unique to each
dog, that help them spot one another. They HARRIS’s hAWKS
hunt together in a deadly gang. A group Although many birds of prey hunt
of up to 20 dogs cooperates to tackle and alone, these birds work together to
bring down their much larger prey. Their attack lizards, rabbits, large insects,
bites are much worse than their barks. and other birds. A few birds at
a time may set off on patrol to look
for prey until they eventually land
dinner, which they share. In other
cases, the hawks quietly surround
their prey, and after one bird swoops
in to startle it, the others attack.

mormon crickets
When a million or more of these
crickets get together in a huge gang,
they are capable of destroying entire
fields of crops and vegetables. The
densely packed swarm stretches as far
as the eye can see and covers 1 mile
(1.6 km) a day, devouring every plant
in their path. No one knows why they
swarm, but they really do bug people.

pIRANhaS
With wide mouths packed full of
razor-sharp teeth that are capable
of stripping flesh from bone, these fish
are deadly enough individually. But
when they get together, it’s murder. In
a feeding frenzy, they can devour their
prey in seconds, ripping off one chunk
of flesh after another. By swarming
together in a group, they also
deter their own predators.

HUNTING IN GROUPS 27
(c) 2011 Dorling Kindersley. All Rights Reserved.