Stock Animal Behavior

Some animals (or certain groups of animals) have a tendency to be depicted in media always doing a certain activity. Cheetahs are always running, humpback whales are always breaching, and roosters are always crowing at dawn. Can be justified when it's to highlight the most prominent characteristic of the animal, or if the animal really does spend a considerable portion of its time engaging in its stock behavior. Oftentimes, however, it leaves the impression that the species spends all of its time engaging in its stock activity and overshadows its other behaviors. See Somewhere This Index Is Crying if the animal doesn't actually engage in its stock behavior in Real Life, or only does so rarely.

Subtropes include Rhino Rampage, Playful Otter, and Cock-a-Doodle Dawn. Killer Rabbit is often a subversion. Can overlap with Stock Animal Diet if feeding is a stock behavior of an animal.

Note: As this trope is based on its ubiquity, the only works that should be listed are aversions, subversions, lampshaded examples, in-universe examples, and other variants.

Examples of Stock Animal Behavior include:

Mollusks

Octopuses are always spraying ink.

Arthropods

Arachnids

Spiders are always sitting around in the middle of their webs.

Crustaceans

Crabs and lobsters are always pinching people.

Insects

Ants are always marching, while carrying absurdly large things.
- Leaf-cutter ants in particular are always carrying leaves.
Bees are always collecting pollen or swarming intruders.
Dung beetles are always rolling balls of dung.
Antlion larvae are always waiting at the bottom of their pits. You never see the adult form.
Mosquitoes are always sucking blood. Somewhere an Entomologist Is Crying if the mosquito depicted isn't a female.

Fish

Jawless fish

Lampreys are always clinging onto their hosts.

Cartilaginous fish

Thresher sharks are always slapping prey with their tails.
Hammerhead sharks are always getting their asses kicked by dolphins.

Bony fish

Archerfish are always shooting down insects.
Salmon are always leaping up waterfalls.
African lungfish are always aestivating.
Moray eels are always poking their heads out of crevices with their mouths open.
Anglerfish are always drawing in prey with their lures.

Amphibians

Horned frogs are always swallowing something (usually mice). In Real Life they appear to always be sitting around half-buried in substrate.

Reptiles

Turtles

Alligator snapping turtles are always luring fish with their tongues. In Real Life they tend to be lying motionless on the bottom of a pond.

Snakes, lizards, and kin

Cobras are always reared up in a threat display.
Basilisk lizards are always running on water.
Frilled lizards are always running around with their frills wide open.
Chameleons are always changing color and catching insects with their long tongues.
Most rattlesnakes are always coiled up with their tails rattling, ready to strike.
Sidewinders are always moving across the desert by sidewinding.
Hog-nosed snakes are always either playing dead or swallowing toads.
Blue-tongued skinks are always sticking their tongues out.
Anacondas are always squeezing caimans to death.
- Constrictor snakes in general are always squeezing something to death.

Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs during the K-Pg extinction are always shown either in mass panic or staring at the asteroid as it hurtles toward Earth.
Pachycephalosaurs are always shown charging at and butting each other in the flank or head (depending on which hypothesis the artist wants to depict).
Maiasaura is always shown taking care of its young.
Oviraptor was always shown stealing eggs from Protoceratops. Now that Science has Marched On, it's always shown brooding its own nest.
Many a large predatory theropod has been shown running and roaring randomly across the landscape. Even when hunting.
Deinonychus is always shown bringing down Tenontosaurus in a deadly pack.
- Played even straighter by Tenontosaurus, which is always being killed by Deinonychus. Always. Even in the extraordinarily rare event it isn't, expect a Lampshade Hanging.
Ceratopsids, ankylosaurs, and stegosaurs are always shown facing off against theropods.
Sauropods used to always be depicted standing around in swamps. Far less prevalent now that science has marched on.
As a tribute to Charles Knight's "Leaping Laelaps" piece, Dryptosaurus is always portrayed (when it is portrayed at all) fighting each other with one individual leaping into the air.
Protoceratops is always either defending its nest from Oviraptor (mostly in older works) or fighting Velociraptor.
Ornitholestes was always shown hunting flying animals, usually the early bird Archaeopteryx (even though the two aren't known to have been contemporaries), but sometimes also pterosaurs or flying insects. This meme appears to have largely died out though.
Mei is always shown sleeping.

Other reptiles

Pterosaurs of all kinds are always shown soaring around catching fish. We now know their lifestyles were probably far more varied than that.
- Thanks to recent research and art done by pterosaur researcher Mark Witton, azhdarchid pterosaurs these days are always shown stalking on the ground eating baby sauropods.

Birds

Peregrine falcons are always shown diving through the air at top speed.
Hummingbirds are always hovering around in the air and sipping nectar. Justified in that they do spend most of their time feeding due to their high metabolism.
Most owls are always sitting around in trees and tree hollows staring at stuff, at least when they're not swooping down on some prey item, usually mice.
Birds of prey in general are always flying around with their talons outstretched to catch something.
Robins are always pulling earthworms from the ground.
Woodpecker finches are always using cactus spines to spear insects in bark.
Penguins on land are always sliding around on their bellies or rearing young. (And they're always emperor penguins.)
Wild geese are always migrating.
Wild galliforms of all kinds are always in courtship display.
In less realistic works, ostriches will always be burying their heads in the sand. They also (more realistically) eat everything they can swallow. More realistic works tend to show them running.
Great blue herons are always standing around in the water, usually in marshes.
Egyptian vultures are always throwing stones at ostrich eggs. Other types of vultures tend to always be gathering around carcasses.
Chickens are always walking around pecking at food. Hens in particular are always sitting on their eggs.

Mammals

Mesozoic mammals are always shown crawling out of dinosaur skulls just after the K-Pg extinction.
Any mammal with a prehensile tail will always be hanging around in trees.

Marsupials

Koalas are always in the eucalyptus trees feasting on leaves.
Kangaroos always carry joeys and hop around everywhere. They're always boxing as well.
Opossums are always hanging upside down (and are always Virginia opossums). This one is actually not true in Real Life: while opossums, especially young ones, can support their weight using only their tails for a short amount of time, they can't do this for the extended periods of time they're often shown in (and certainly don't sleep in this position).
- They also play dead a lot.

Hoofed mammals

Musk ox herds are always forming a circle to fend off wolves.
Similar to pachycephalosaurs, rams and bighorn sheep engage in butting heads as well.
Hippos are always lounging about in the water. You'll never see the part about how they come onto land to graze at night.
Deer and antelope are always grazing peacefully before a predator bursts out and makes them scatter.
Wildebeest are always doing river crossings and getting attacked by crocodiles.
Cattle are always stampeding or chewing cud.

Carnivorans

Cheetahs are always shown chasing down prey.
Meerkats are always standing up on lookout while the rest of their colony does... whatever it is they do.
Indian gray mongooses are always fighting cobras.
Brown bears are always waiting for salmon on the waterfall.
River otters are always playing (often by sliding down mud slides), while sea otters are always floating on their backs using a rock to crack shellfish.
Spotted skunks are always doing handstands.
- Skunks in general are always spraying predators.
Wolves are always howling at the moon or hunting some large herbivore in packs.
"Seals" (actually sea lions most of the time) are always balancing balls on their nose, barking, and clapping their flippers.
Leopards (and sometimes other big cats) are always lounging about in trees. They'll often pounce on prey that passes by from underneath.
Polar bears are always waiting for seals at their breathing holes.
Bull elephant seals are always fighting.
Lone dogs are peeing on fire hydrants.

Rodents

Prairie dogs are always standing up on lookout while the rest of their colony does... whatever it is they do.
Beavers on land are always chewing on trees.
Gophers are always tunneling.

Primates

Aye-ayes are always searching for insects in tree bark.
Sifakas are always hopping around.
Gibbons are always brachiating (unless they are siamangs).
Howler monkeys and siamangs are always vocalizing.

Other mammals

Humpback whales are always either singing or breaching.
Sperm whales are always fighting giant squid.
Armadillos, hedgehogs, and pangolins are always curling into balls.
Anteaters are always feeding on ants or termites.
Sloths are always hanging upside down.
Repenomamus is always eating baby Psittacosaurus.
Moles are always bursting out of the ground with only their head and forelimbs showing, or tunneling underground.
Vampire bats are always drinking blood or hanging in caves.
Rabbits are always breeding.
Mammoths are always stuck in tarpits being threatened by saber-toothed cats.

Exceptions, Subversions, Aversions, and Notable Examples in Media

Newspaper Comics

In-universe example: in Peanuts Snoopy was prone to doing these in his imitations.
- Vulture: lurking on a tree branch
- Lion: stalking & pouncing
- Kangaroo: hopping
- Boa Constrictor: squeezing

Web Original

Greatly averted here.
Several aversions with lampshades hanging here, most of which are entirely speculative and somewhat tongue in cheek.