The predator-prey relationship is one of the most recognizable and well-studied animal relationships. One of the more striking aspects of this relationship is the differential natural selection pressure placed on predators and their prey. This differential pressure results from differing costs of failure, the so-called life-dinner principle. If a predator fails to catch a prey item, it simply goes hungry; if a prey item fails to escape a predator, its life is usually over. This strong selection pressure on prey has led to a diversity of defensive adaptations, such as camouflage, poison, and armoring. In this article, the authors describe a two-part laboratory experiment designed to examine two putative defensive adaptations in an aquatic predator-prey system: multimodal predator detection systems and the fast-start escape response. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)