stotting

The classic example of this is "stotting" behavior in healthy young gazelles, where these animals jump up and down in front of a predatory leopard rather than-what would seem to be a smarter move-immediately running away.

MachineMachine (formerly 'The Huge Entity') 2009

I had thought stotting was a sexual signal, but a brief search reveals support for Mungowitz's position.

Is "Costly Signal" Such an Obscure Concept? 2008

Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene, refers to stotting and explains it as the animal's attempt at advertising its health.

Joseph Minton Amann and Tom Breuer: The Real Reason McCain Picked Palin 2009

Since mammalian predators tend to hunt old or unhealthy animals, stotting informs the predator that the animal is actually very healthy and strong and the predator might do well to try to hunt the other animals in the herd.

Joseph Minton Amann and Tom Breuer: The Real Reason McCain Picked Palin 2009

Well, perhaps the answer is to be found in a quirk of evolution peculiar to gazelles and similar animals called "stotting."

Joseph Minton Amann and Tom Breuer: The Real Reason McCain Picked Palin 2009

A (biological) function of stotting by antelopes is to communicate to predators that they have been detected.

Teleological Notions in Biology Allen, Colin 2003

Bang! went the other barrel, which the hare acknowledged by two or three stotting bounds and an increase of pace.

Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour Robert Smith Surtees 1833

I can easily imagine how little Ibe [27] will be stotting about the house and garden.

Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa Mungo Park 1788

So it's funny to be very habituated to watching regular wildebeests which are kind of gruff and intense looking and tough, and then come across the back wildebeests and watch them stotting around the landscape like, in comparison to the regular model gnu, dancers in a Baz Luhrmann production.

ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science Greg Laden none@example.com 2010

So it's funny to be very habituated to watching regular wildebeests which are kind of gruff and intense looking and tough, and then come across the back wildebeests and watch them stotting around the landscape like, in comparison to the regular model gnu, dancers in a Baz Luhrmann production.

ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science Greg Laden none@example.com 2010