Some of the most popular fantasy creatures are predators, and the last fantastical biology article focused on them and the strategies they use to catch their prey. Today we’ll move from the hunter to the hunted, which in fantasy novels is often the human protagonist. Much of this article will focus on how real animals defend themselves from predators, and ways to put a fantastical spin on those strategies.
I think part of the reason fantasy creatures tend to be dangerous is a combination of coolness and creating tension in the story. Dragons are awesome, and the protagonist is often in direct conflict with them. But in the real world, hippos are more dangerous and kill more people every year than sharks, and are considered to be one of the most dangerous animals in Africa.
How is that possible? In part it’s because people assume that since they don’t eat meat, they’re safe to approach and touch. Even deer and cows injure and kill more people than sharks. Just because it doesn’t look ferocious doesn’t mean it can’t be dangerous. Every animal has a way to defend itself, and those defenses evolve in response to the predators in its environment. A fantasy creature that lives in the same area as a dragon will have a different way of surviving then one that lives near trolls.
Fast Food
The hippo uses its massive size (they can weigh up to 1500 kg, or 3300 lbs) and aggressive behavior to deter predators from attacking. Being the biggest thing around is a great defense, but so is having hooves, claws, or horns. But most animals prefer to run—or fly—from danger, rather than start a fight with a hungry lion or bear. Observe a rabbit munching on grass; it’s usually looking around as it eats. At the first sign of danger, it bolts, using its speed to get to safety.
Some creatures, like the turtle, don’t run or fight. They evolved a tough outer shell to protect themselves. If there are basilisks in your story, a shell made of reflective material would be a great defense. The basilisks wouldn’t even be able to look at that creature without turning themselves to stone.
Tricky Camouflage
Both predators and prey use camouflage to blend into their surroundings. This is why a lot of wild animals are rather drab and uniform in color. There are exceptions, of course. Spots or stripes can break up an animal’s outline, making them very difficult to see in shady forests. Rather than blending into their environment, zebras blend in with each other, making it hard for a hungry lion to single out one easy target.
Some animals take camouflage in a different direction, and have evolved to look like another, more dangerous animal. This is especially common with insects like butterflies and moths, but can be found in other species. A fantasy adaptation of this could be patterning a fairy’s wings to look like the eyes of an owl or snake, to keep birds from trying to eat it. Animals can also mimic the sounds of other species as well. A harmless, cave-dwelling creature could learn to mimic a dragon’s roar to scare other creatures away from its home.
Beautiful and Dangerous
Most instances of mimicry involve one or both of the animals being poisonous. The harmless milk snake looks very similar to the deadly coral snake, both sharing a pattern of red, yellow, and black rings. In fact, bright colors in the animal world tend to mean danger, so predators learn to avoid creatures with colors and patterns that stand-out. Get sprayed once, and most predators learn to avoid the black and white skunk. Poison-dart frogs have a wide range of vivid colors; blue, gold, red, and many more. Some also have enough poison to kill more than 10 people. Their easy-to-spot coloration is a clear warning: don’t eat me, or else.
If your fantasy novel takes place in or near the ocean, consider how the hagfish, a creature that’s been around since before the dinosaurs, protects itself. It secretes slime on its skin that clogs the gills and chokes other fish that attack it. Perhaps it’s time for slimy mermaids?
Clever Critters
Humans aren’t the only animals that rely on being clever to survive. The killdeer is a bird that builds its nest on the ground. When predators are nearby, it will pretend to have a broken wing to lure them away. Creatures in a fantasy novel can be given any level of sentience and intelligence that the story requires, including being able to outsmart the protagonist.
Also, any of the strategies mentioned above can be the products of magic, such as a potion that makes the protagonist’s skin toxic to the touch. The protagonist may even get the idea after encountering poisonous frogs; there are many ways in adapt these strategies to a fantastical setting.
Geoff Matthews
Julia Kitvaria Sarene
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I really enjoy the idea of mixing real animals and what they do with fantasy, and combining the ideas. It inspires my imagination ^_^
This is a very well-done article! I appreciate the way that you have integrated insights from real-world biology and ecology.
One thing I’d like to encourage writers to think about here are evolutionary arms races between predators and prey. The essence of an arms race is that a ‘move’ by either party precipitates a counter-move by the other. This is true whether one starts with a defense on the part of the prey species or an offensive capability on the part of the predator species.
You gave an excellent example of an arms race, Shambralyn, in the previous installment in this series: the great speed of cheetahs and gazelles. Gazelles have to be fast to escape cheetahs, who have to be fast to catch gazelles. The really interesting thing here is that although gazelles are a large part of the average cheetah’s diet, gazelles have to watch out for other predators.
Thus, there is an asymmetry: the gazelle has evolved to optimize its ability to escape cheetahs to a *great degree,* but there is reason to think that they could be even better at it if they did not also have to escape other predators. Specifically, gazelles are not as fast as cheetahs, although they are more maneuverable and generally have more endurance. From what I understand, this is thought to reflect the fact that they have to escape other predators that use very different hunting strategies, such as spotted hyenas.
Another great example of an arms race comes from my own state of Oregon, home of the incredibly poisonous rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa). The newts are loaded with a highly deadly neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin, and they carry far, far more of it than they need to kill any conceivable predator except for the one predator that has evolved extraordinary levels of resistance, certain populations of the common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis). The two are locked in an arms race that has ratcheted up both the amount of poison that the newts carry and the degree of resistance to that poison in the garter snakes.
I can well imagine the logic of arms races producing some pretty spectacular adaptations in fantastical creatures. What if the predator species hunts with magic, and the prey species has evolved a means of neutralizing that magic–say a magical “force field” that dispels all other magic, kind of like the Ysalamiri in Thrawn’s Star Wars novels? Over time, evolution could produce predators with extremely powerful, concentrated hunting magic, designed to neutralize the anti-magic force fields of their prey, who in turn could evolve extremely powerful force fields to compensate.
Now, how might humans use either or both of these creatures? Could the predator species be domesticated and used as a specialized weapon of war to break through magical defense of an enemy army? Could the prey species be domesticated and used to neutralize enemy spells on the battlefield?
One last suggestion (and maybe this is something you’ve already thought of), but I think a look at fantasy parasites and pathogens could be very interesting. Real-world eukaryotic parasites are some of the most fascinating creatures on the planet, and together with pathogenic bacteria and viruses they have had an enormous influence on human history and on evolution.