Second, immobility affords a certain degree of invisibility: an inert body is much less likely to be seen by a predator. Third, immobility may promote group survival: when hunted by a predator pack, the collapse of one individual may distract the pack long enough for the rest of the herd to escape. Last, but by no means least, a fourth biological function of immobility is that it triggers a profoundly altered state of numbing. In this state, extreme pain and terror are dulled: so if the animal does survive an attack it will be, even though injured, less encumbered by debilitating pain and thus
...more
