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Super Persistent Predator
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What? Are there no fish on this island!?
If you're smaller than the anaconda, it considers you food. If you're larger than the anaconda, it considers you a lot of food.
Our intrepid young adventurers are exploring their new unknown land for whatever reason it may be: be it money, pursuit of knowledge, or simply by accident (a quest for survival). In any case, they are unaccustomed to the land, but aren't exactly smart about being careful.
Namely, they run into some monstrous beast that wants only one thing from them: lunch. After a dangerous escape (someone will probably be killed), the explorers dust themselves off, maybe laugh nervously, and try to get as far away from that thing as possible. No harm done, time to focus on getting the shelter or something, right?
But wait, what's that sound? Is it following them? Through rivers and mountains and who knows what else?
You bet. Seems like this thing just won't give up until it has another taste of human. No matter how long it goes without a meal.
Basically, this predator will hunt the protagonists far beyond the call of common sense or even instinct. Be it through fierce jungles, caves, canyons. You'll bet that, once the climax comes by, the beast will be right there ready for one Final Battle. If the heroes manage to find shelter, you can bet that the predator(s) will go through an extreme amount of effort to break windows or unlock doors to get to its prey. You might find an ecologist tearfully screaming that nobody, animal or human, would be this vindictively persistent just for one difficult meal.
A situation like this might have you thinking that it'd be more productive to just find something else to eat. Sometimes it's explained away by stating that they've got human intelligence, but that just raises further questions about why an intelligent predator would expend so much effort to eat something that keeps eluding them. In practice, this is just the animal version of the Implacable Man.
The natural opposite is Pick On Someone Your Own Species. Compare Attack Attack Attack, when the animal fights irrationally. Usually happens in places where Everything Is Trying To Kill You. Biological equivalent of the Spiteful AI. The entire universe can be like this to The Chew Toy or Butt Monkey.
Examples
Anime
- Dragonball Z had an amazing example of this. Young Gohan was sent on survival training with little more than a sword. Eventually, he gets the hang of it. And apparently gets chased by a Tyrannosaurus Rex every morning. Not only does the T. Rex never get Gohan, every morning he knocks him out, and slices off part of his tail and eats it. And yet, despite his prey eating HIM every morning, he continues to hunt Gohan.
- In the beginning. anyway. Eventually, it starts running away from him.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena featured a herd of super-persistent herbivores.
Film
- This Trope is the premise of The Ghost And The Darkness.
- If this troper recalls correctly, the lion in this movie never actually chased or hunted them to a ridiculous extent. The humans had just moved into its territory (building a railroad I think) and it was picking them off for food. This happens in Africa in Real Life. A hungry lion will repeatedly attack a small village because it learns that humans with only mud huts for shelter and primitive weapons are easy prey. Usually the lion won't stop picking off people until it is killed.
- In fact, it is specifically stated that the lions would kill even when not hungry.
- This is also a true story; the lions are stuffed and on display in the natural science museum in Chicago. Recent studies have suggested that between the two lions, they only ate some 40 people, not the 140 originally claimed.
- Oh boy, pick a Sci Fi Channel "Original Movie". To name a few of the more unintentionally hilarious examples:
- In Kaw, Ravens And Crows get infected with Mad Cow (?!) disease after eating clearly diseased rotting cow flesh. As soon as they go crazy, they decide to exclusively go for the human protagonists (not even any other areas, just those few people). This includes waiting on a bus while the the humans cry and then throwing rocks at the bus in a desperate attempt to get inside. Later, they slam themselves against a diner in order to get in and eat the people inside, before they inexplicably die. You'd think there weren't any animals in the forest. Subverted in that the super persistent predators starve to death, just as they would in real life.
- Justified in Lake Placid (but not so much the Sci-Fi Original sequels third and onward), featuring a crocodile (giant, naturally) pursuing a group of half-dressed teenagers. One of them had one of her eggs in his backpack, fueling her maternal rage. The survivors are allowed to leave when they return it.
- Considering it was not a reproductive queen, the xenomorph in the original Alien film sure went to some lengths to hunt down and capture (or kill) the crew. Probably justified in the fact that the queen/worker/hive analogy wasn't developed until the second film.
- Justified in deleted scenes. It was using an alternate method to make eggs. That being 'the people'.
- One theory raised by those making the movie was that the aliens were created as weapons of war, so that would also make their Kill Em All actions plausible. They're also strongly implied to be considerably more intelligent than any ordinary predator, giving it a possible motive beyond food.
- It's not like there would have been all that much food in the Nostromo's air ducts; it might just have been stocking up food. And it might have percieved the ship as its territory or the humans as potential threats. Or some combination of the above.
- The truck in Duel behaves like this just For The Evulz.
- The shark in Jaws, more so in the sequels.
- To ridiculous extremes in Jaws: The Revenge. The shark apparently tracks down people over hundreds of miles in order to kill them in revenge for their father having killed a couple of other sharks a decade earlier.
- Jurassic Park teetered over the edge of this trope for two films: In the first, the T. Rex and the "velociraptors" aren't following the humans as much as chancing upon them and chasing them a bit. In the second, the Tyrannosaurus couple is chasing the humans because humans had kidnapped their baby. In the third, however, they just throw reason to the wind, and have the Spinosaurus chase the protagonists about a mile farther than reason would allow. One would think that there weren't any other dinosaurs around, or that it was just that cruel. The Velociraptors of this film, however, were chasing the heroes because one of them secretly stole their eggs.
- However, both the T. Rex and the raptors in the original novel are extremely persistent.
- The weirdest thing about the Spinosaurus chasing down the heroes is that pretty much all Palaeontologists agree that it ate fish. Sometimes carrion (leftovers, basically). Now, if the lawyer from the first movie was with them, it might have mistaken him for a shark...
- Actually, most people hold that the Spinosaurus was protecting its territory, which, considering it's a predator bigger than T. Rex, could encompass the whole island.
- While all of the predators of King Kong's Skull Island seemed to want to try out the new taste sensation of humanity more than the next one, none were worse than the
T-Rex T. Rex V. Rex who actually runs after Ann Darrow with the corpse of a current kill in his mouth. Some of the V. Rexes on the island actually sacrifice themselves in their attempts to kill her.
- Keep in mind that there are other humans on Skull Island, presumably hunter-gatherer types who may hunt some of the same animals the Dinosaurs eat. They probably have an instinctive hostility towards humans because top predators often kill each other to reduce competition for food.
- TV B Movie The Last Dinosaur has the titular titan, a T. Rex with Implacable Man tendencies, treats a group of explorers like this...at first. Then we see it kill and eat pretty much everything unlucky enough to cross its path. Implicitly it's eaten most every other animal in the Lost World.
- Used as padding in the new Star Trek film. Kirk is being chased by some shambling furry thing. Then a giant red ant bursts out of the ice, bites the furry thing, tosses it aside...and starts chasing Kirk. Even though the shambling furry thing was bigger (but still bite-sized to it) and it had already attacked it.
- Makes significantly more sense if you interpret the red creature as being territorial as opposed to hungry. It frequently stops to roar at Kirk, something a hunting animal is unlikely to do but an animal trying to intimidate a supposed threat might, and Spock Prime is able to run it off with a mere signal flare once it enters his territory, the cave.
- Which makes significantly less sense once you take into account how long it chased Kirk, and how quickly Kirk established he wasn't a threat.
- Bigger animal, bigger territory. Also, chase instinct.
- Maybe it was a little of both, it killed the furry beast and saved it for later
- Not exactly a predator, but the prehistoric squirrel in Ice Age is pretty persistent about getting That One Nut; his attempts, and subsequent failures, to eat is a Running Gag.
- And in the third film, we have Rudy.
- The bear in The Edge was a perfect example of this trope.
- The killer whale in Orca.
- Justified, the whale was not hunting, his mate was harpooned, hung by her tail until she has a miscarriage and then she is finally thrown back to die. Needless to say, he was out for vengeance not a meal.
- The crocodile from Peter Pan. Justified with the bit of backstory that the croc had eaten Hook's amputated hand and liked the taste so much that he wanted the rest of the dish.
- The shark which manages to flop very fast across an unclear distance of land and right into a volcano in pursuit of the very small lemur Mort in Madagascar 2.
- Played with in the 2009 Land Of The Lost movie. The resident T-Rex, Grumpy, actually is all set to give up on chasing Marshall, Will, and Holly after they prove to be more trouble than they're worth. That's until Dr. Marshall insults the T-Rex's intelligence, causing it to hold a grudge against him for the rest of the film.
- Played straight in The Mummy, where "The Creature" is following a bunch of humans due to a charming little curse they brought on themselves when they opened a chest. As quoted by Ardeth Bay: "Know this; this creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat. He will never sleep. He will never stop!".
Literature
- In Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, Muldoon commented that the raptors were cruelly intelligent and liked to hunt for sport as much as for food. It was actually justified in the second book, which explained that because raptors were so intelligent, being born and raised without actual raptor "parents" to raise them properly turned them into violent and chaotic creatures.
- Happens in an utterly over-the-top way in Wraith Squadron, with an insect that supposedly follows mammalian prey it encounters... well, pretty much as far as it has to. (Even managing to sneak onto the heroes' spaceship.) The Storini Crystal Deceiver is said to paralyze its prey and eat them alive; victims can be saved if they are found before too much biomass has been devoured. Subverted hilariously: the entire creature was made up as part of a practical joke, as the logical extreme of an Escalating War. Specifically, this was Face and Phanon's LOWEST setting of payback.
- Justified in the Artemis Fowl series with Trolls. Apparantly to them, humans are by far the most deliciousest things ever, and after trying one, a troll will do anything to eat more.
- Also doesn't hurt that they're dumb as rocks.
Live Action TV
- In Primeval if it is carnivorous and came through an anomaly, then it is going to be an example of this trope.
- Several of the cryptids featured in Lost Tapes play to this trope.
Real Life
- This troper was given to understand that many predators really do behave this way, though not to the ridiculous extents often depicted in fiction. There is, however, one notable exception. Humans are nearly tireless by the standards of most other animals — in our hunter-gatherer days, our favored tactic seems to have been following an animal at a jog until it simply dropped of exhaustion and heatstroke and either died there or had its head bashed in with a rock.
- The Other Wiki has it listed under Persistence Hunting
 .
- This is still practiced by many African tribes. This troper once read an interesting article in a science magazine stating that no animals are better suited to running for long distances than humans. Quite apart from physical endurance we can carry water along to replenish ourselves without stopping for one.
- Only partly true. There are many better long distance runners (canines for example). We are ideal for doing it in high savannah temperatures where faster animals will simply heatstroke. But those temperatures are key, as our cooling system is superior to theirs. http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2009/04/evolution-of-long-distance-runner.html
- Depends on what you count as running, wolves certainly run faster and keep that speed up longer than a human running full out. However a wolves can only tavel 4 hours at a time, a fit human can move at 5 miles an hour for 24-30 hours. Humans are the only animal that can run 100 miles in one go. Although that may because we are the only things crazy enough to try.
- The Komodo Dragon has a unique twist — it bites its prey once, then trails the animal until it dies from the massive infection of the wound from the Komodo's nasty, bacteria-factory teeth.
- actually, it's been recently discovered that they actually have venom glands, and the bacteria is just a bonus pain. This doesn't effect the status as a trope example, just a recent discovery.
- to further expound, the venom is extremely unique in that it doesn't actually poison. It prevents the animal's blood from clotting or the resulting wounds from healing. In short, Komodo Dragon venom works by dooming the bitten victim to days of agonizing unstoppable bleeding to death.
Tabletop Games
- Raksha (souleating Lovecraftian fae from Exalted) find human dreams and emotions especially tasty.
Troper Tales
- This editor's cat, Elric, once lay in wait for a mouse that was hiding behind a bookcase. I offered Elric food, amounting to a much larger meal than the mouse, but Elric refused and kept staring at the bookcase, hoping for its prey to come back out.
- Well-fed cats hunt for fun. He was probably not planning on eating it as much as playing with it, killing it once he's had enough, then giving you its corpse as a gift.
Video Games
- Alma from the Adventures of Lolo games. She'll normally mind her own business, but if Lolo should get within her field of vision, she'll roll after him until either she catches him or if he takes refuge in a meadow.
- Many of the monsters in Final Fantasy XII seem to go to rather crazy lengths to catch the party. The ones that teleport however, won't leave you alone until you leave the room, and a few monsters might just keep going.
- There was a glitch in The Oregon Trail III that sometimes made wild animals act like this. If you went out hunting and fled from an angry bear, the bear would appear right in your face the next time you went hunting, ready to maul your party members. This bear would follow your wagon for thousands of miles until you managed to kill it.
- While Peter Jackson's version of King Kong uses this trope full-force in the movie as seen above, and you still get chased way too far by the V. rexes, the Official Game Of The Movie actually averts this as a specific game mechanic. A lot of time, you can divert the attention of a predator away from you by killing something smaller, causing the larger enemy to take the easier meal. There are even giant dragonflies and grubs you can stab with a spear, specifically for creating such distractions.
- Most enemies in video games, really. Only rarely the AI even includes an option for the enemy to give up the chase.
Western Animation
- Sharptooth (Tyrannosaur) from the first The Land Before Time hunted the dinosaur heroes through mountains and a desert, though this may just have been because there was nothing else to eat.
- Alternatively, it could have been a particularly cruel and sadistic Sharptooth, given that all the other dinosaurs are at least semi-sentient.
- Revenge may have played a part, seeing as the Sharptooth got his eyesight damaged and fell to his near-death during his first scrape with the youngsters.
- Sylvester. Who, in one of the clip shows, has chased Tweety across the world.
- Not just a clip show. There is a movie about Tweety going around the world in 80 days, and Sylvester chased Tweety through the entire world.
- Tweety deserves it.
- Poor old Wile E. Coyote, chasing the Roadrunner far beyond the call for reason, going so far as to buy countless Acme products and mountains of birdseed instead of spending that money on something he could actually eat. It actually was explained by Wile E. himself, in the only episode in which he speaks. He addresses the question of, "Why would a supposedly intelligent predator invest so much time and energy chasing a difficult prey with very little meat?" He shows a diagram of the roadrunner and how its different cuts correspond, in the coyote's palate, to the most sumptuous delicacies that humans enjoy.
- On a related note, when Elmer Fudd wants to hunt "wabbits", why does he go for the one with a 155 I.Q.?
- Tom of Tom And Jerry, whose obsession is best relayed through the fact that he once chased Jerry into a dog pound.
- In the Robot Chicken sketch involving the Smurfs getting killed in a flood has Gargamel, after years of trying to capture the Smurfs so he can eat them, finally being able to eat them (what with so many Smurf corpses). When he takes a bite though, the look on his face is that of "I've wasted my life".
- In the original comics, he doesn't want to eat them (Azrael does), but use them as ingredients to create a philosopher's stone. But like other cartoon villains mentioned above, he is growing increasingly frustrated and angered with the Smurfs foiling his plans so sometimes he just wants to make them suffer.
- Yet another Robot Chicken sketch (the Se7en parody) also lampshaded Gargamel's wobbling between the two motives.
Web Comic
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