Red in Tooth and Claw

Published: 2023-11-28

Last Updated: 2025-08-23

The idea of herbivores as passively feeble, and, the inverse, of the predator as an indomitable beast prevailing over their weakness, is quite a disservice.

Prey are not walking sacks of meat that put up no resistance. They are animals with rich and interesting lives like any other. Lives of which they intend to fight to keep living. They are quick-witted, admirable, creatures, ones whose might and dignity has been kicked aside. In many, if not all, large predatory mammals, a majority of hunts end in failure, after all.

Hunts don't always fail simply because the animal ran away. The wildebeest gores the lioness. The elk's kick breaks the wolf's mandible. The porcupine barbs and disorientates the leopard. The hare evades the talons of the eagle, and it crashes to the ground. These are things that happen more often than you'd think.

These are things the predator has to account for — they are not invincible. Failure can and does cost them their lives. Prey species, especially ungulates, are formidable; they have nothing to lose. The most dangerous animals in the world by frequency of attacks, rather than hypothetical lethality, are often herbivores: hippopotamus, elephants, and cattle. They do not simply stand idle chewing in a meadow somewhere, waiting to die docile under claws. They have temperaments and bodies built specifically to defend themselves from threat.

They are agile and strategic: the cheetah may be the fastest land mammal, but the gazelle it preys upon possess superior stamina and often outmanoeuvre them. Species who do not run or fight often turn to rather impeccable forms of camouflage and display. Delicately evolved mechanisms that keep them completely hidden from sight or trick predators into believing they are much more hazardous than they truly are.