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I never heard of this one. The only example that I know from is the Skitty species known for this habit.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but all play and no work makes Jack a mere boy
I believe you can find more examples in animated cartoons where a cat is made to chase their own tail under the mistaken belief that it's the prey that it's been chasing (bonus points if the tip of the tail has been disguised to look like said prey to complete the illusion).
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Bumping to restart the search, I want this found too.
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
Dogs and young cats chasing their tails is People Sit On Chairs (its just something they do), but having other animals doing this to show that they're, say, playful or friendly would be All Animals Are Dogs or All Animals Are Domesticated depending on the specifics.
If it's a sapient canine or feline, such as a Cat Girl, it would fall under My Instincts Are Showing or Furry Reminder.
Edited by BattleMaster
@Scorpion 451: I don't think it's People Sit On Chairs, because typically in fiction, it's either deliberately done to distract the tail's owner from the character they're pursuing, or it's a moment of stupidity by the tail's owner that conveniently buys time for the pursued character. So it's always done as an exploitation of a real phenomenon for narrative purpose.
Now that I think about it, usually the examples that I see have the chase quickly lead to the pursuer biting their own tail. And some examples have the same concept applied to other body parts, e.g. in a hypothetical example, an (anthropomorphized) cat sticks their hand into a hole to catch a mouse, said mouse quickly paints the hand to look like itself and lets it pop out through another hole, and the cat falls for the ruse and attacks their own hand.
It's kinda like Stop Hitting Yourself, but with the caveat that it's not always deliberate on part of the pursued character.
Edited by MarqFJA Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
A tailed animal — typically a dog or a cat, and especially one a juvenile one — is driven to chase their own tail for one reason or another; knowing or eventually realizing that their quarry is actually part of their body is optional.
Do we have a trope for this? It's definitely not Chasing Your Tail, which although its name gives that impression, is actually about a Boss Battle in which both the player and the boss run around in circles chasing/running away from each other.
Edited by MarqFJA