I don’t know if you’ve answered an ask like this before, but given your knowledge of animals and the fantasy animal thing you sometimes do, what traits (whether real or fantasy) do you think an animal would need to be the perfect, all round killing machine/apex predator? I love you’re blog and hope your open day goes well!!!!

drferox:

I just want to mention that in my last ask (if tumblr didn’t eat it) I
only ask about the apex predator thing cause I have an idea for a one
shot story. I am doing my own research but just wanted to hear what you
think from a medical perspective who understands it better

Opposable thumbs.

It’s a bit of a weird question, because animals and nature don’t work like this. There’s no animal that’s a ‘perfect killer’ or it’s going to out-compete its prey and starve. Real animals, especially apex predators, are also highly adapted to the environment in which they live. Tigers and Great White Sharks are both excellent and successful apex predators, but if you take one and put it into the habitat of the other, it’s not going to do so well.

Predators in general are killing to eat. If they’re not hungry then why spend the energy? There are always exceptions to the rule, of course (domestic cats, feral dogs, foxes) and these exceptions cause significant ecological damage when they predate too heavily on their prey species, and may even hunt their preferred prey to extinction.

An animal isn’t just a killing machine, either. As a species they need to be able to interact with other individuals for reproduction. They may need to groom themselves or construct shelter.

If the question is rephrased as ‘what traits make an animal especially destructive or good at killing other animals’ then the answer is versatility, adaptability and being just a little bit better at things than the other species living in the area. I mean, Brushtail possums were introduced to New Zealand and developed an appetite for birds! Just because they could!

So the traits required are highly dependent on the environment the animal is in, as well as what other species are present. But to be honest, humans do a pretty good job at fitting your original description.

If you want to write a story where people are being chased by a genetically engineered “perfect killing machine”, big cats are already pretty good at being lethal towards humans. A very bored super-tiger could do the trick. Or a sneaky and fairly large wolf. Or a bear. Or an extremely venomous and target-oriented wasp. 

There is no one perfect killing machine because there is no one perfect killing situation. Pick your situation and decide what would be most dangerous in that context. Forests? Something sneaky and quiet, maybe able to drop from the trees. Think large panther. Open areas with nowhere to hide? Speed and endurance to outmatch a human. Again, wolves. Wolves are apex predators that can take on a wide variety of prey. Cities? Maybe something small and venomous. A determined spider monkey with a scorpion tail would be terrible. An entire troop of them would kill all sorts of people. 

Probably you’d want whatever it is to be trained to hunt specific targets, otherwise it’d eventually get tired or go after an easier target.