what, evolutionarily speaking, determines if an animal will be a pack hunter, or a solitary one?

Question

and are there animals that hunt together sometimes, and other times are solitary hunters? what are the benifits/disadvantages of both systems?

Answer 1

It all depends on their target: How tough it is to get to the prey - size of the prey can be very large relatively, the prey can move much quicker relatively, the density of the prey species, the physical and numeric strength of the prey species, the help from habitat and the levels of toleration and lastly, the need for a pack for their own protection.

We could go on about each point above, but we all know that pack hunting is mighty successful since the most successful animal on this planet was a pack hunter, still is in some sense - man!!

In some cases, like the wild dogs, being in a pack is protection for the young and the pack can split up to take care of the young or go for the hunt.

In the plains of Africa, we see prides of lions, because the prey there is quicker than the lions and the lions do not have much of the forest cover that tigers in asia have to ambush their prey.

In case of wolves in the North America, the prey species is hard to get and it's a matter of survival for them to stay as a pack to get their weekly meals.

Whales, hunt in packs as well, so they can coordinate an assault on their relatively tiny prey.

Of course, each of those predator species which hunt in packs have strong social links to be in a pack. I think those social bonds have evolved in order to keep the group together. We notice that a pack is usually made of females who are all closely related - mothers, sisters and daughters of other members. The males come and ago - sometimes "owning the pack". The wild dogs packs are made up of an alpha male and alpha female which would have broken away from a pack to start their own.

Answer 2

The pack hunters usually come with a crowd