10 crafty ways animals hunt their prey

In the animal kingdom, predators rely on their cunning to capture prey. From inescapable traps to deceptive lures, here are some of the Animals with the most crafty ways of capturing their prey.

Hidden trapdoors

Trapdoor spiders are masters of ambush and surprise. They build underground burrows where they sit and wait for unsuspecting prey to wander close by.

The best-known trapdoor spiders are those in the family Ctenizidae that build silken, hinged doors above their tunnels. They dig their tunnels beneath busy insect walkways and camouflage them with leaves and dirt.

The spider sits patiently holding the hinged door slightly open, waiting to detect the vibration from an insect crawling. Then, the spider quickly leaps out of its tunnel, capturing its meal with its front legs and pedipalps — antennae-like appendages close to its mouth.

These spiders share features with their close relatives the tarantulas (Theraphosidae) but are less hairy and much smaller in size.

Bubble-blowing nets

Large humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) swim in a circle beneath shoals of fish, releasing bubbles to form a "net" that surround the fish, trapping them in condensed groups. The whales then work together to force the fish close to the surface before taking a gulp.

This hunting method is known as "bubble-net feeding" and is learned among different groups and can change slightly between populations of whales.