History Main / SuspiciouslyStealthyPredator

'''Ripley:''' They cut the power...\\

*** The Beast of Gevaudan was said to be not so much stealthy as just plain fucking unstoppable. She attacked in broad daylight, fought hand to hand (or rather paw to hand) with armed farmers, flaunted royal huntsmen, and was even said to shrug off bullets like nothing.

** In one proposed ending for the first film which was never used, it would have been revealed that the Xenomorphs can mimic human voices....to communicate over a radio transmission and lure more humans to find the ''Nostradamus.'' Yes, they were almost sentient.

* ''Tremors'' movies:

The creature will know not to leave tracks, claw tree bark, or dump a load where it might be found, save by a master tracker who's escorting the heroes. Likewise, this trope ensures that the creature will consistently find unarmed victims (usually [[AssholeVictim confirmed jerkasses]] or [[FanService lone sexy females]]) to prey upon, even as the armed hunters, police, and/or soldiers scouring the woods for the mysterious threat [[FailedASpotCheck walk right by without noticing]]. In extreme cases, the creature might [[MissedHimByThatMuch slip right by dozens of potential witnesses by sheer luck]]. Often used to maintain a MonsterDelay, both in and out of Verse.

** Leopards in general own this trope. They're listed among the Big Five Game for African hunting (along with the obvious lion, elephant, rhino, and the vicious Cape Buffalo) just for being that hard to [[pun spot]]. Leopard-hunters often don't see their target until they're a few ''feet'' away, and no other hunter type has as high a rate of stress-related breakdown.

* As documented in Magazine/ForteanTimes, this is a maddening trait of the Alien Big Cats long speculated to be living clandestine lives in the British countryside, which are glimpsed, which leave identifiable dung, make pawprints, rend sheep and lambs leaving unambiguous proof some sort of large predator is out there - but which manage to avoid traps, know not to walk in front of CCTV, can sniff out hidden cameras and evade pursuit even on the fringes of large cities.

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The creature will know not to leave tracks, claw tree bark, or dump a load where it might be found, save by a master tracker who's escorting the heroes. Likewise, this trope ensures that the creature will consistently find unarmed victims (usually [[AssholeVictim confirmed jerkasses]] or [[FanService lone sexy females]]) to prey upon, even as the armed hunters, police, and/or soldiers scouring the woods for the mysterious threat [[FailedASpotCheck walk right by without noticing]]. In extreme cases, the creature might [[MissedHimByThatMuch slip right by dozens of potential witnesses by sheer luck]].

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' has Ser Barristan Selmy get the chills when he starts totting up the tactics Daenarys' dragons use both in hunting and fighting. Because the traditional "take down a boar or bull" approach most fighters or knights would use (and even tried to use, historically) could only ever work to provide dinner to the dragon. And, in the specific case of Rhaegal, he suspects ItCanThink.

* The Xenomorphs from the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise are ''very'' smart if perhaps not fully sapient, they cut the power, sneak past defenses using ducts, lay ''traps'' using bait. It seems they are at least as intelligent as humans, but driven entirely by instinct mainly to kill, but if a queen is around to lay [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong eggs]] they will capture targets ''alive'' instead.

* Cats, wolf and trapdoor spiders, snakes, and owls are just a few of the stealthy predators out there that are in fact very good at what they do, maybe not against cameras, but definitely against their prey.

The flip side to SuperPersistentPredator, this is what happens when a dangerous creature with the intellect and mindset of a wild animal, which has no business knowing what closed-circuit cameras, firearms, vehicles or other man-made devices are, nevertheless avoids these objects like the plague. This guarantees that the heroes who report it to the authorities [[ItWasHereISwear will never be believed]], as no photographic evidence exists to document its presence.

* Seems to apply to most of the creatures on ''{{Primeval}}'', even the ones that otherwise act incredibly stupid due to low brain/body ratios.

The creature will know not to leave tracks, claw tree bark, or dump a load where it might be found, save by a master tracker who's escorting the heroes. Likewise, this trope ensures that the creature will consistently find unarmed victims (usually [[AssholeVictim confirmed jerkasses]] or [[FanService lone sexy females]]) to prey upon, even as the armed hunters, police, and/or soldiers scouring the woods for the mysterious threat [[MissedASpotCheck walk right by without noticing]]. In extreme cases, the creature might [[MissedHimByThatMuch slip right by dozens of potential witnesses by sheer luck]].

The creature will know not to leave tracks, claw tree bark, or dump a load where it might be found, save by a master tracker who's escorting the heroes. Likewise, this trope ensures that the creature will consistently find unarmed victims (usually [[AssholeVictim confirmed jerkasses]] or [[FanService lone sexy females]]) to prey upon, even as the armed hunters, police, and/or soldiers scouring the woods for the mysterious threat walk right by without noticing. In extreme cases, the creature might slip right by dozens of potential witnesses by sheer luck.

The flip side to SuperPersistentPredator, this is what happens when a dangerous creature with the intellect and mindset of a wild animal, which has no business knowing what closed-circuit cameras, firearms, vehicles or other man-made devices are, nevertheless avoids these objects like the plague. This guarantees that the heroes who report it to the authorities will never be believed, as no photographic evidence exists to document its presence.

* {{Bigfoot|SasquatchAndYeti}} in ''Night Claws'', the Creator/RebBrown movie. It seems to hide BehindTheBlack sometimes and just straight up murders people in clearings of forests. The latter is {{Justified|Trope}} because [[spoiler: there's a pack of them.]]
* The Graboids in the ''{{Tremors}}'' series. Justified since they live and hunt underground and are therefore invisible to most tracking techniques.
** ''Tremors 2'' subverts this. Earl and Grady have a major OhCrap moment at how smart the Graboid hatchlings seem to be after they destroy a running car engine to block any escape and take out the radio tower so they can't call for help. Then someone observes that their rudimentary vision is based on heat signatures, and they only went after the car and the tower because both were putting off heat.
-->'''Grady:''' [[AchievementsInIgnorance You mean they've been acting so smart 'cuz they're so]] ''[[AchievementsInIgnorance stupid]]''?

* The Xenomorphs from the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise are ''very'' smart if perhaps not fully sapient (they cut the power, sneak past defenses using ducts, lay ''traps'' using bait. It seems they are at least as intelligent as humans, but driven entirely by instinct (mainly to kill, but if a queen is around to lay [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong eggs]] they will capture targets ''alive'' instead).

* The first American remake of ''Film/{{Godzilla 1998}}'' has the titular monster somehow being able to hide in the middle of New York City.

* Cats, wolf and trapdoor spiders, snakes, and owls are just a few of the stealthy predators out there that are in fact very good at what they do.