...J. E. Herbert-Read; A. J. W. Ward; D. J. T. Sumpter; R. P. Mann ABSTRACT The escape paths prey animals take following a predatory attack appear to be highly unpredictable – a property that has been described as ‘protean behaviour’. Here, we present a method of quantifying the escape paths...

.... Thus, the unpredictability (‘protean behaviour’) of the response may be affected by the conditions of the interaction. Subsequent tail-flips of an escape usually directed the response away from the stimulus, but sometimes escapes were instead steered to the side of the stimulus and then behind...