History Main / SuperPersistentPredator

* Humanity is this trope's ultimate [[InvertedTrope inversion]]. Due to our bipedalism making our heads, necks, and torsos endlessly weigh down our legs, we tire out after around 5 to 10 seconds of running, and to make matters worse, our unstable gait makes it ''exceedingly'' easy for other creatures to trip up, knock over, and [[EatenAlive devour us alive]]. [[FromBadToWorse Worse still]], our abnormally-shaped bodies and weak senses make it hard for us to move through thick jungle brush and similar obstacles and track intended targets (allowing targeted animals to lose us ''instantly'' once they start runing away). In short, if a bigger and meaner creature ever locks onto you, [[YouAreAlreadyDead you might as well stand still and accept your painful demise]], and with so many disadvantages working against us, you seriously have to wonder why we haven't ''gone extinct'' by now.
* There is a well-known pack animal that uses persistence as its primary hunting strategy: wolves (as they'll oftentimes pursue elk, moose, bison, deer, and other large herbivores over great distances until they tire out and die of sheer blood loss).
* [[BewareOfViciousDog African wild dogs]] are persistent hunters because they'll chase their prey until it tires out (sometimes for ''miles'').
* [[HeinousHyena Hyenas are also known to endlessly pursue hapless prey until it does from shock, heat exhaustion, and devastating injuries.]]

* ''Humans'' are perhaps [[TropeMakers the most successful example of this trope]], called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting Persistence Hunting]]. We are nearly tireless by the standards of most other animals, though hardly fast 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. This is still practiced by many African tribes. (Before you try it on your local whitetails, though, remember that these people are hunting in vast expanses of flat land; there's no forests for the animal to hide in or hills for it to vanish over.)
** There is a well-known pack animal which uses persistence as its primary hunting strategy: Wolves. Kind of makes sense that these two species would have gotten along fairly well in ancient times, doesn't it? Man's Best Friend might have originated as a pack of wolves and a pack of humans getting to know each other while chasing down the same big game, teaming up to take it down, and sharing in the kill.
** [[BewareOfViciousDog African wild dogs]] are persistent hunters. They will chase their prey until it tires out, sometimes for miles.
** [[HeinousHyena Hyenas are also known to do this.]]

* Some paleontologists believe that many large predatory dinosaurs may have practiced this method of killing as well. This is really the only way to kill giant sauropods, which are simply too dangerous to kill by any other method of attack- one (or possibly more) big therapods would stalk a sauropod until they spotted an opening to run in and take a bite out of its vulnerable belly or flank. This created a large, bleeding wound. Continuing to harry it over a course of hours, days, or possibly even weeks would eventually cause it to die of a combination of exhaustion, blood loss, and possibly infection. Tyrannosaurs and spinosaurs, however, not being sauropod hunters, were physically incapable of hunting this way, and are believed to have instead employed ambush predation, with the former also potentially using its sheer size and strength to overpower prey as quickly as it could.

* The hunters in ''[[LetsPlay/{{Dream}} Dream's]]'' Minecraft Manhunt ''really'' want to kill Dream.

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs''
** We have the big antagonist of the film, [[spoiler:Rudy (though his case may be justified, seeing as he's out for vengeance against a rival among the protagonists as well as just a meal)]].
** The pack of hungry [[TerrorDactyl blue and orange pterosaurs]]. No matter what happened, whether passing around brachiosaurus legs, being bombarded by exploding fruit bombs, or trying to keep up over Buck’s steering, they were determined to eat Crash and Eddie throughout all that.
*** One pterosaur in the pack takes persistence further by thinking to dodge all the fruits that the others have been knocked down with, then without any hesitation, breaks away from the others to fly up at the possums and scare them with its fierce screech. [[spoiler:This extreme persistence of the pterosaur ultimately backfires]]