A lot of wildlife can kill you in the right circumstances. Like yeah you might be able to grab a bobcat and break it's neck or throw it against a rock, but it's claws are sharp enough and strong enough to hit your femoral or your neck and you will bleed out in minutes. Same thing with a deer. Even the does can kick hard enough to fuck you up if they catch you in the right spot, much less a giant pissed off buck. We are just a very fragile species. We gave all that defensive stuff up when we took to the trees, and when we came back down we figured out the whole clothing thing before we had time to evolve new stuff.
Our only really unique defensive trait is our ability to throw like fucking champs. It is literally our one unique physical ability.
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
We've got great endurance! But really our best abilities are our ability to work in groups and our toolmaking. With those we've literally remade the world in our own image.
As a freshwater person, this conversation is extremely confusing. This is what we'd call a sunfish:
And they are stupid and tend to get caught by the same worm-on-a-hook strategy day after day after day. But they aren't that stupid.
Also they are real assholes with those spikes on the back.
Common names are very frustrating at times. Molas are sometimes called ocean sunfish for that reason.
Freshwater sunfish aka perch aka bluegill aka bream are a whole other mess of species that all hybridize with each other
This is madness. Get your shit together fish.
On an episode of QI, one of the facts they talked about was that the group "fish" is meaningless. The animals we commonly group together as "fish" are amazingly diverse and often essentially unrelated.
Humans are more closely related to salmon than salmon are to sharks. And lets not get started on hagfish.
Yet salmon, sharks and hagfish are "fish". You might as well include whales in the group; you wouldn't be any more wrong than you already are.
A lot of wildlife can kill you in the right circumstances. Like yeah you might be able to grab a bobcat and break it's neck or throw it against a rock, but it's claws are sharp enough and strong enough to hit your femoral or your neck and you will bleed out in minutes. Same thing with a deer. Even the does can kick hard enough to fuck you up if they catch you in the right spot, much less a giant pissed off buck. We are just a very fragile species. We gave all that defensive stuff up when we took to the trees, and when we came back down we figured out the whole clothing thing before we had time to evolve new stuff.
Our only really unique defensive trait is our ability to throw like fucking champs. It is literally our one unique physical ability.
And tbh I wouldn't bet on an unarmed human walking away with a sufficiently angry bobcat at all.
We've got great endurance! But really our best abilities are our ability to work in groups and our toolmaking. With those we've literally remade the world in our own image.
We do have great endurance but that is because we can sweat to cool off, in the cold we lag pretty far behind other animals. I guess we can also carry food and water, and eat and drink to an extent while we move but that is more of a technological advantage. I mean in terms of raw physical abilities, we are better at throwing then any other animal out there but a staggering margin. Not one single other animal can reliably take down food by throwing stuff. Although there are at least one species of fish that can spit pretty damn well.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The thing is that a life-or-death fight for prey is very rarely the same situation for a predator. Predators are never interested in the challenge, they want the most food for the least effort. Since there are nearly no animals that hunt humans, nothing knows how to habitually hunt humans effectively and any halfway smart predator doesn't want to risk learning as they can rarely afford even minor injuries. Critters like lions and bears have to learn how to hunt the things they hunt, it isn't instinctive.
And never underestimate a human with a pointy thing. A stag fending off a mountain lion is just gonna kinda wave those horns around, but they don't know how to kill or even really injure the lion. A human, however, knows they can gouge eyes, stab a neck, smash joints, so even just a handy rock gives them more of an advantage than you might think. After all, the human doesn't need to kill the predator, they just need to make the predator scared to get hurt and leave.
The only really successful animals that learn to prey on humans are either so huge (polar bear) a lone human has almost no way to hurt them without serious preparation or large ambush predators (crocodiles, the rare man-eating lion/tiger, etc) which negate the human advantages with overwhelming power and speed.
Thing with big cats is they don't really want to tangle with people and even when they do try to hunt they're ambush predators, not going from the front and walking at the target. This was just a pissed off parent chasing away a potential threat to its child
The thing is that a life-or-death fight for prey is very rarely the same situation for a predator. Predators are never interested in the challenge, they want the most food for the least effort. Since there are nearly no animals that hunt humans, nothing knows how to habitually hunt humans effectively and any halfway smart predator doesn't want to risk learning as they can rarely afford even minor injuries. Critters like lions and bears have to learn how to hunt the things they hunt, it isn't instinctive.
And never underestimate a human with a pointy thing. A stag fending off a mountain lion is just gonna kinda wave those horns around, but they don't know how to kill or even really injure the lion. A human, however, knows they can gouge eyes, stab a neck, smash joints, so even just a handy rock gives them more of an advantage than you might think. After all, the human doesn't need to kill the predator, they just need to make the predator scared to get hurt and leave.
The only really successful animals that learn to prey on humans are either so huge (polar bear) a lone human has almost no way to hurt them without serious preparation or large ambush predators (crocodiles, the rare man-eating lion/tiger, etc) which negate the human advantages with overwhelming power and speed.
Aww yeah. Discussion about unarmed humans fighting animals for some reason. This is exactly the classic D&D content I’ve been craving.
Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?
Horse-sized duck, hands down. If I win, I get bragging rights for killing a thousand-pound murder duck. If he wins, I get an amazing tombstone.
A hundred horse-sized ducks would be amateur hour, I can already wade into a flock of ducks and kick them around.
Going to have to disagree about the African predators not knowing how to hunt humans. Humans, and our ancestors, were probably a reliable food source for many of those animals for hundreds of thousands of years. The reason that modern animals don't seem that interested in us is because we have systematically hunted and killed every single one of them that even thought about eating us, much less went through with it. There has been an evolutionary pressure against hunting people so massive that outside of the dinosaurs dying it is probably unique.
And you are right that a person can use their wits to really level the playing field or even gain the upper hand for most animals. A big stick, good sized rock, or like you said some good old fashioned fighting dirty can help, but only to an extent. Our main weakness, the thing that really gets us killed, is how easy it is to make us bleed out. Sweating give us great endurance but at a pretty severe trade off.
Can't bobcats also duck you up? I mean, probably not as much as the mountain lion, but probably still enough that you shouldn't approach them?
They can top out at twice the weight of a domestic Maine Coon cat (and it's hard to really understand just how huge those get if you haven't seen one) and have the same claws and teeth.
If you've ever been on the receiving end of a freaked out cat's wrath, imagine one the size of a spaniel and live your life in fear.
Hevach on
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
I actually just read an article about that video. Each time the cougar is lunging, the guy was attempting to stoop down enough to grab a rock to throw. It finally ended when he was actually able to grab a rock and throw it, and he got lucky enough to hit the cougar dead on. And apparently his tactic of just continuously backing up while making himself look big and noisy is basically best practice for that situation, otherwise it could have gone a lot worse.
Ideally at the beginning he should have just stood his ground instead of backing up while she was charging. Any kind of retreat when a predator is running at you has a chance of triggering their chase instinct. Once they stop charging you can start yelling and backing up.
Edit: well, the yelling can start whenever, and will probably happen by itself
We've got great endurance! But really our best abilities are our ability to work in groups and our toolmaking. With those we've literally remade the world in our own image.
We do have great endurance but that is because we can sweat to cool off, in the cold we lag pretty far behind other animals. I guess we can also carry food and water, and eat and drink to an extent while we move but that is more of a technological advantage. I mean in terms of raw physical abilities, we are better at throwing then any other animal out there but a staggering margin. Not one single other animal can reliably take down food by throwing stuff. Although there are at least one species of fish that can spit pretty damn well.
There's a couple species of spider that throw their web at prey. Though i don't know their success rate. Maybe they just go by volume and that's where "reliably" comes into play.
We've got great endurance! But really our best abilities are our ability to work in groups and our toolmaking. With those we've literally remade the world in our own image.
We do have great endurance but that is because we can sweat to cool off, in the cold we lag pretty far behind other animals. I guess we can also carry food and water, and eat and drink to an extent while we move but that is more of a technological advantage. I mean in terms of raw physical abilities, we are better at throwing then any other animal out there but a staggering margin. Not one single other animal can reliably take down food by throwing stuff. Although there are at least one species of fish that can spit pretty damn well.
There's a couple species of spider that throw their web at prey. Though i don't know their success rate. Maybe they just go by volume and that's where "reliably" comes into play.
Most of the web casting spiders that I've heard of haven't thrown their web so much as spun it between their fore legs and lunged at prey from ambush.
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There are species called Bolas spiders that make a big glob of web goo at the end of a line and swing it around at prey.
Small animals have much higher strength relative to their size than big animals - the only large animals that throw in a useful manner are primates, and only humans have the proven ability to kill with thrown objects (we have seen some chimp groups use weapons, but not to lethal effect - the actual kill in chimp hunts is usually when several get ahold of a piece and stat pulling... Chimps are fucking scary).
There's some species that makes a long thread with a sticky glob on the end and dangle it, or even swing it at passing prey. Still not throwing a rock or pointy stick, but pretty cool all the same.
We've got great endurance! But really our best abilities are our ability to work in groups and our toolmaking. With those we've literally remade the world in our own image.
We do have great endurance but that is because we can sweat to cool off, in the cold we lag pretty far behind other animals. I guess we can also carry food and water, and eat and drink to an extent while we move but that is more of a technological advantage. I mean in terms of raw physical abilities, we are better at throwing then any other animal out there but a staggering margin. Not one single other animal can reliably take down food by throwing stuff. Although there are at least one species of fish that can spit pretty damn well.
There's a couple species of spider that throw their web at prey. Though i don't know their success rate. Maybe they just go by volume and that's where "reliably" comes into play.
It's well known that their success rate is way lower than Spiderman's.
We've got great endurance! But really our best abilities are our ability to work in groups and our toolmaking. With those we've literally remade the world in our own image.
We do have great endurance but that is because we can sweat to cool off, in the cold we lag pretty far behind other animals. I guess we can also carry food and water, and eat and drink to an extent while we move but that is more of a technological advantage. I mean in terms of raw physical abilities, we are better at throwing then any other animal out there but a staggering margin. Not one single other animal can reliably take down food by throwing stuff. Although there are at least one species of fish that can spit pretty damn well.
There's a couple species of spider that throw their web at prey. Though i don't know their success rate. Maybe they just go by volume and that's where "reliably" comes into play.
It's well known that their success rate is way lower than Spiderman's.
Yes, but he has the unfair advantage of being human.
We've got great endurance! But really our best abilities are our ability to work in groups and our toolmaking. With those we've literally remade the world in our own image.
We do have great endurance but that is because we can sweat to cool off, in the cold we lag pretty far behind other animals. I guess we can also carry food and water, and eat and drink to an extent while we move but that is more of a technological advantage. I mean in terms of raw physical abilities, we are better at throwing then any other animal out there but a staggering margin. Not one single other animal can reliably take down food by throwing stuff. Although there are at least one species of fish that can spit pretty damn well.
There's a couple species of spider that throw their web at prey. Though i don't know their success rate. Maybe they just go by volume and that's where "reliably" comes into play.
It's well known that their success rate is way lower than Spiderman's.
Yes, but he has the unfair advantage of being human.
That's the point! Their webslinging was nowhere near as accurate as a human's.
I actually just read an article about that video. Each time the cougar is lunging, the guy was attempting to stoop down enough to grab a rock to throw. It finally ended when he was actually able to grab a rock and throw it, and he got lucky enough to hit the cougar dead on. And apparently his tactic of just continuously backing up while making himself look big and noisy is basically best practice for that situation, otherwise it could have gone a lot worse.
Ideally at the beginning he should have just stood his ground instead of backing up while she was charging. Any kind of retreat when a predator is running at you has a chance of triggering their chase instinct. Once they stop charging you can start yelling and backing up.
Edit: well, the yelling can start whenever, and will probably happen by itself
When it's a female protecting her cubs standing your ground is really not the route to go.
Also because it can never be said enough don't fuck around with the cute baby wildlife
We've got great endurance! But really our best abilities are our ability to work in groups and our toolmaking. With those we've literally remade the world in our own image.
We do have great endurance but that is because we can sweat to cool off, in the cold we lag pretty far behind other animals. I guess we can also carry food and water, and eat and drink to an extent while we move but that is more of a technological advantage. I mean in terms of raw physical abilities, we are better at throwing then any other animal out there but a staggering margin. Not one single other animal can reliably take down food by throwing stuff. Although there are at least one species of fish that can spit pretty damn well.
There's a couple species of spider that throw their web at prey. Though i don't know their success rate. Maybe they just go by volume and that's where "reliably" comes into play.
It's well known that their success rate is way lower than Spiderman's.
Yes, but he has the unfair advantage of being human.
The question is: does he do what a spider can, or only what a spider can?
We've got great endurance! But really our best abilities are our ability to work in groups and our toolmaking. With those we've literally remade the world in our own image.
We do have great endurance but that is because we can sweat to cool off, in the cold we lag pretty far behind other animals. I guess we can also carry food and water, and eat and drink to an extent while we move but that is more of a technological advantage. I mean in terms of raw physical abilities, we are better at throwing then any other animal out there but a staggering margin. Not one single other animal can reliably take down food by throwing stuff. Although there are at least one species of fish that can spit pretty damn well.
There's a couple species of spider that throw their web at prey. Though i don't know their success rate. Maybe they just go by volume and that's where "reliably" comes into play.
It's well known that their success rate is way lower than Spiderman's.
Yes, but he has the unfair advantage of being human.
The question is: does he do what a spider can, or only what a spider can?
Bob Burden had a really great panel of Spider-Man that just hid in dark corners and ate flies
I actually just read an article about that video. Each time the cougar is lunging, the guy was attempting to stoop down enough to grab a rock to throw. It finally ended when he was actually able to grab a rock and throw it, and he got lucky enough to hit the cougar dead on. And apparently his tactic of just continuously backing up while making himself look big and noisy is basically best practice for that situation, otherwise it could have gone a lot worse.
Ideally at the beginning he should have just stood his ground instead of backing up while she was charging. Any kind of retreat when a predator is running at you has a chance of triggering their chase instinct. Once they stop charging you can start yelling and backing up.
Edit: well, the yelling can start whenever, and will probably happen by itself
When it's a female protecting her cubs standing your ground is really not the route to go.
Also because it can never be said enough don't fuck around with the cute baby wildlife
I have been in that situation, standing your ground works fine.
Which is convenient when your natural Fight, Freeze, or Flee instinct is weighed heavily towards Freeze
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
We've got great endurance! But really our best abilities are our ability to work in groups and our toolmaking. With those we've literally remade the world in our own image.
We do have great endurance but that is because we can sweat to cool off, in the cold we lag pretty far behind other animals. I guess we can also carry food and water, and eat and drink to an extent while we move but that is more of a technological advantage. I mean in terms of raw physical abilities, we are better at throwing then any other animal out there but a staggering margin. Not one single other animal can reliably take down food by throwing stuff. Although there are at least one species of fish that can spit pretty damn well.
There's a couple species of spider that throw their web at prey. Though i don't know their success rate. Maybe they just go by volume and that's where "reliably" comes into play.
It's well known that their success rate is way lower than Spiderman's.
Yes, but he has the unfair advantage of being human.
The question is: does he do what a spider can, or only what a spider can?
I really don't like the implications for his prey the criminals he has webbed up.
Can't bobcats also duck you up? I mean, probably not as much as the mountain lion, but probably still enough that you shouldn't approach them?
They can top out at twice the weight of a domestic Maine Coon cat (and it's hard to really understand just how huge those get if you haven't seen one) and have the same claws and teeth.
If you've ever been on the receiving end of a freaked out cat's wrath, imagine one the size of a spaniel and live your life in fear.
Just don't try to pick one up and you'll be fine. I can't remember the last time I heard about a bobcat being aggressive towards humans compared to hiding from them.
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I ZimbraWorst song, played on ugliest guitarRegistered Userregular
Can't bobcats also duck you up? I mean, probably not as much as the mountain lion, but probably still enough that you shouldn't approach them?
They can top out at twice the weight of a domestic Maine Coon cat (and it's hard to really understand just how huge those get if you haven't seen one) and have the same claws and teeth.
If you've ever been on the receiving end of a freaked out cat's wrath, imagine one the size of a spaniel and live your life in fear.
Just don't try to pick one up and you'll be fine. I can't remember the last time I heard about a bobcat being aggressive towards humans compared to hiding from them.
My brother-in-law had a bobcat try to attack him, but he startled it at night in a copse of trees so I get the bobcat's side.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Yea we've had a bobcat prowling around the property every now and again. We just give him his space and he gives us a wide berth if we're all outside at the same time. He has shown no interest in interacting with us, but does love our field mice.
Yea we've had a bobcat prowling around the property every now and again. We just give him his space and he gives us a wide berth if we're all outside at the same time. He has shown no interest in interacting with us, but does love our field mice.
Yea we've had a bobcat prowling around the property every now and again. We just give him his space and he gives us a wide berth if we're all outside at the same time. He has shown no interest in interacting with us, but does love our field mice.
Sounds like you two have a deal going then.
Oh yea. I'd be A-ok with a family of bobcats moving in. It would be awesome.
The thing is that a life-or-death fight for prey is very rarely the same situation for a predator. Predators are never interested in the challenge, they want the most food for the least effort. Since there are nearly no animals that hunt humans, nothing knows how to habitually hunt humans effectively and any halfway smart predator doesn't want to risk learning as they can rarely afford even minor injuries. Critters like lions and bears have to learn how to hunt the things they hunt, it isn't instinctive.
And never underestimate a human with a pointy thing. A stag fending off a mountain lion is just gonna kinda wave those horns around, but they don't know how to kill or even really injure the lion. A human, however, knows they can gouge eyes, stab a neck, smash joints, so even just a handy rock gives them more of an advantage than you might think. After all, the human doesn't need to kill the predator, they just need to make the predator scared to get hurt and leave.
The only really successful animals that learn to prey on humans are either so huge (polar bear) a lone human has almost no way to hurt them without serious preparation or large ambush predators (crocodiles, the rare man-eating lion/tiger, etc) which negate the human advantages with overwhelming power and speed.
Aww yeah. Discussion about unarmed humans fighting animals for some reason. This is exactly the classic D&D content I’ve been craving.
Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?
Horse-sized duck, hands down. If I win, I get bragging rights for killing a thousand-pound murder duck. If he wins, I get an amazing tombstone.
A hundred horse-sized ducks would be amateur hour, I can already wade into a flock of ducks and kick them around.
Going to have to disagree about the African predators not knowing how to hunt humans. Humans, and our ancestors, were probably a reliable food source for many of those animals for hundreds of thousands of years. The reason that modern animals don't seem that interested in us is because we have systematically hunted and killed every single one of them that even thought about eating us, much less went through with it. There has been an evolutionary pressure against hunting people so massive that outside of the dinosaurs dying it is probably unique.
And you are right that a person can use their wits to really level the playing field or even gain the upper hand for most animals. A big stick, good sized rock, or like you said some good old fashioned fighting dirty can help, but only to an extent. Our main weakness, the thing that really gets us killed, is how easy it is to make us bleed out. Sweating give us great endurance but at a pretty severe trade off.
African predators (and many non-predators like cape buffalo) don't so much hunt humans as they have evolved to understand on some level that we funny little hairless apes need to be killed on sight with extreme prejudice, or we'll do weird things with flying tree branches of various sizes that will kill them.
The megafauna in the Americas unfortunately generally didn't get that memo.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The thing is that a life-or-death fight for prey is very rarely the same situation for a predator. Predators are never interested in the challenge, they want the most food for the least effort. Since there are nearly no animals that hunt humans, nothing knows how to habitually hunt humans effectively and any halfway smart predator doesn't want to risk learning as they can rarely afford even minor injuries. Critters like lions and bears have to learn how to hunt the things they hunt, it isn't instinctive.
And never underestimate a human with a pointy thing. A stag fending off a mountain lion is just gonna kinda wave those horns around, but they don't know how to kill or even really injure the lion. A human, however, knows they can gouge eyes, stab a neck, smash joints, so even just a handy rock gives them more of an advantage than you might think. After all, the human doesn't need to kill the predator, they just need to make the predator scared to get hurt and leave.
The only really successful animals that learn to prey on humans are either so huge (polar bear) a lone human has almost no way to hurt them without serious preparation or large ambush predators (crocodiles, the rare man-eating lion/tiger, etc) which negate the human advantages with overwhelming power and speed.
Aww yeah. Discussion about unarmed humans fighting animals for some reason. This is exactly the classic D&D content I’ve been craving.
Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?
Horse-sized duck, hands down. If I win, I get bragging rights for killing a thousand-pound murder duck. If he wins, I get an amazing tombstone.
A hundred horse-sized ducks would be amateur hour, I can already wade into a flock of ducks and kick them around.
Going to have to disagree about the African predators not knowing how to hunt humans. Humans, and our ancestors, were probably a reliable food source for many of those animals for hundreds of thousands of years. The reason that modern animals don't seem that interested in us is because we have systematically hunted and killed every single one of them that even thought about eating us, much less went through with it. There has been an evolutionary pressure against hunting people so massive that outside of the dinosaurs dying it is probably unique.
And you are right that a person can use their wits to really level the playing field or even gain the upper hand for most animals. A big stick, good sized rock, or like you said some good old fashioned fighting dirty can help, but only to an extent. Our main weakness, the thing that really gets us killed, is how easy it is to make us bleed out. Sweating give us great endurance but at a pretty severe trade off.
To the best of my knowledge, almost any mammal that is a) a predator and b) can hunt humans as food has to learn to hunt everything they hunt. Unlike, say, spiders, African lions aren't instinctively skilled at stalking and killing prey. They have to spend a lot of time and effort learning how to do it well when they're young, just like mountain lions, wolves, tigers, foxes, bears, etc. There's no instinctive basis for them to go after humans and, without being taught to hunt humans, it's extremely rare for them to develop the skills on their own. As a rule, they'd rather go after something they know how to hunt, even something much smaller than humans. If there was some crazy-ass event that suddenly stripped all humans of shelter and technology and weapons and whatnot, yeah, a lot more predators would learn to hunt humans, but only because of a massive increase in opportunity and reduction in risk.
So yeah, if you go back like... half a million years then yeah, African predators had humans as a regular part of their diet. But that's not the modern situation.
About the only exception is polar bears, but they live in an environment where prey opportunities are always rare, are themselves fairly intelligent, and they have no competition whatsoever except for other polar bears. They'll hunt humans given the chance, but there's nothing around to teach them to be afraid of critters they don't know and they're largely built around the idea of "if I can smell it, I can eat it".
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Can't bobcats also duck you up? I mean, probably not as much as the mountain lion, but probably still enough that you shouldn't approach them?
They can top out at twice the weight of a domestic Maine Coon cat (and it's hard to really understand just how huge those get if you haven't seen one) and have the same claws and teeth.
If you've ever been on the receiving end of a freaked out cat's wrath, imagine one the size of a spaniel and live your life in fear.
Just don't try to pick one up and you'll be fine. I can't remember the last time I heard about a bobcat being aggressive towards humans compared to hiding from them.
But look at it! It's so cute! How can you not want to mush that cute wittle nose?!
The evolutionary advantage of we hunted down and made extinct (or ate the prey of and starved out) all of our predators is a pretty strong one.
I mean we took one of the smartest and most capable predators in the world and now they serve us unconditionally in exchange for belly ribs. And another kinda eats our vermin when they feel like it.
Humans are pretty badass even if we are fairly fragile naked and alone. Although even a predator won't fuck with a healthy 6' 180 lbs male protecting his family in most cases. Why bother?
Can't bobcats also duck you up? I mean, probably not as much as the mountain lion, but probably still enough that you shouldn't approach them?
They can top out at twice the weight of a domestic Maine Coon cat (and it's hard to really understand just how huge those get if you haven't seen one) and have the same claws and teeth.
If you've ever been on the receiving end of a freaked out cat's wrath, imagine one the size of a spaniel and live your life in fear.
Just don't try to pick one up and you'll be fine. I can't remember the last time I heard about a bobcat being aggressive towards humans compared to hiding from them.
But look at it! It's so cute! How can you not want to mush that cute wittle nose?!
I'm glad I don't live in an area with large wild cats
Otherwise there's a decent chance my last words would be "Pspspspsps"
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Our only really unique defensive trait is our ability to throw like fucking champs. It is literally our one unique physical ability.
PSN:Furlion
Makes sense, considering how much weight each leg is built to carry.
Also human stamina is actually pretty high.
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Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?
Horse-sized duck. Its bones would shatter under its weight.
On an episode of QI, one of the facts they talked about was that the group "fish" is meaningless. The animals we commonly group together as "fish" are amazingly diverse and often essentially unrelated.
Humans are more closely related to salmon than salmon are to sharks. And lets not get started on hagfish.
Yet salmon, sharks and hagfish are "fish". You might as well include whales in the group; you wouldn't be any more wrong than you already are.
And tbh I wouldn't bet on an unarmed human walking away with a sufficiently angry bobcat at all.
We do have great endurance but that is because we can sweat to cool off, in the cold we lag pretty far behind other animals. I guess we can also carry food and water, and eat and drink to an extent while we move but that is more of a technological advantage. I mean in terms of raw physical abilities, we are better at throwing then any other animal out there but a staggering margin. Not one single other animal can reliably take down food by throwing stuff. Although there are at least one species of fish that can spit pretty damn well.
PSN:Furlion
And never underestimate a human with a pointy thing. A stag fending off a mountain lion is just gonna kinda wave those horns around, but they don't know how to kill or even really injure the lion. A human, however, knows they can gouge eyes, stab a neck, smash joints, so even just a handy rock gives them more of an advantage than you might think. After all, the human doesn't need to kill the predator, they just need to make the predator scared to get hurt and leave.
The only really successful animals that learn to prey on humans are either so huge (polar bear) a lone human has almost no way to hurt them without serious preparation or large ambush predators (crocodiles, the rare man-eating lion/tiger, etc) which negate the human advantages with overwhelming power and speed.
Horse-sized duck, hands down. If I win, I get bragging rights for killing a thousand-pound murder duck. If he wins, I get an amazing tombstone.
A hundred horse-sized ducks would be amateur hour, I can already wade into a flock of ducks and kick them around.
Going to have to disagree about the African predators not knowing how to hunt humans. Humans, and our ancestors, were probably a reliable food source for many of those animals for hundreds of thousands of years. The reason that modern animals don't seem that interested in us is because we have systematically hunted and killed every single one of them that even thought about eating us, much less went through with it. There has been an evolutionary pressure against hunting people so massive that outside of the dinosaurs dying it is probably unique.
And you are right that a person can use their wits to really level the playing field or even gain the upper hand for most animals. A big stick, good sized rock, or like you said some good old fashioned fighting dirty can help, but only to an extent. Our main weakness, the thing that really gets us killed, is how easy it is to make us bleed out. Sweating give us great endurance but at a pretty severe trade off.
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There's a solid chance I would have just curled up and accepted my lion-based end about half way through.
They can top out at twice the weight of a domestic Maine Coon cat (and it's hard to really understand just how huge those get if you haven't seen one) and have the same claws and teeth.
If you've ever been on the receiving end of a freaked out cat's wrath, imagine one the size of a spaniel and live your life in fear.
Ideally at the beginning he should have just stood his ground instead of backing up while she was charging. Any kind of retreat when a predator is running at you has a chance of triggering their chase instinct. Once they stop charging you can start yelling and backing up.
Edit: well, the yelling can start whenever, and will probably happen by itself
I mean there are things that are easy to say and things that are easy to do.
There's a couple species of spider that throw their web at prey. Though i don't know their success rate. Maybe they just go by volume and that's where "reliably" comes into play.
Most of the web casting spiders that I've heard of haven't thrown their web so much as spun it between their fore legs and lunged at prey from ambush.
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Not really a thrown weapon on the order of a rock or a spear though.
Small animals have much higher strength relative to their size than big animals - the only large animals that throw in a useful manner are primates, and only humans have the proven ability to kill with thrown objects (we have seen some chimp groups use weapons, but not to lethal effect - the actual kill in chimp hunts is usually when several get ahold of a piece and stat pulling... Chimps are fucking scary).
Spider spoiler
It's well known that their success rate is way lower than Spiderman's.
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Yes, but he has the unfair advantage of being human.
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That's the point! Their webslinging was nowhere near as accurate as a human's.
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When it's a female protecting her cubs standing your ground is really not the route to go.
Also because it can never be said enough don't fuck around with the cute baby wildlife
The question is: does he do what a spider can, or only what a spider can?
Bob Burden had a really great panel of Spider-Man that just hid in dark corners and ate flies
I have been in that situation, standing your ground works fine.
Which is convenient when your natural Fight, Freeze, or Flee instinct is weighed heavily towards Freeze
I really don't like the implications for his prey the criminals he has webbed up.
Just don't try to pick one up and you'll be fine. I can't remember the last time I heard about a bobcat being aggressive towards humans compared to hiding from them.
My brother-in-law had a bobcat try to attack him, but he startled it at night in a copse of trees so I get the bobcat's side.
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Sounds like you two have a deal going then.
Oh yea. I'd be A-ok with a family of bobcats moving in. It would be awesome.
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African predators (and many non-predators like cape buffalo) don't so much hunt humans as they have evolved to understand on some level that we funny little hairless apes need to be killed on sight with extreme prejudice, or we'll do weird things with flying tree branches of various sizes that will kill them.
The megafauna in the Americas unfortunately generally didn't get that memo.
To the best of my knowledge, almost any mammal that is a) a predator and b) can hunt humans as food has to learn to hunt everything they hunt. Unlike, say, spiders, African lions aren't instinctively skilled at stalking and killing prey. They have to spend a lot of time and effort learning how to do it well when they're young, just like mountain lions, wolves, tigers, foxes, bears, etc. There's no instinctive basis for them to go after humans and, without being taught to hunt humans, it's extremely rare for them to develop the skills on their own. As a rule, they'd rather go after something they know how to hunt, even something much smaller than humans. If there was some crazy-ass event that suddenly stripped all humans of shelter and technology and weapons and whatnot, yeah, a lot more predators would learn to hunt humans, but only because of a massive increase in opportunity and reduction in risk.
So yeah, if you go back like... half a million years then yeah, African predators had humans as a regular part of their diet. But that's not the modern situation.
About the only exception is polar bears, but they live in an environment where prey opportunities are always rare, are themselves fairly intelligent, and they have no competition whatsoever except for other polar bears. They'll hunt humans given the chance, but there's nothing around to teach them to be afraid of critters they don't know and they're largely built around the idea of "if I can smell it, I can eat it".
But look at it! It's so cute! How can you not want to mush that cute wittle nose?!
I mean we took one of the smartest and most capable predators in the world and now they serve us unconditionally in exchange for belly ribs. And another kinda eats our vermin when they feel like it.
Humans are pretty badass even if we are fairly fragile naked and alone. Although even a predator won't fuck with a healthy 6' 180 lbs male protecting his family in most cases. Why bother?
I'm glad I don't live in an area with large wild cats
Otherwise there's a decent chance my last words would be "Pspspspsps"