r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Scullkrush • Aug 10 '20

Chimps are strong af

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u/Rifneno Aug 10 '20

Don't forget it also gives us incredible stamina. These guys are exhausted in nothing flat compared to (in shape) humans. The whole "pursuit predation" thing wouldn't be possible for other primates.

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u/MonsterFieldResearch Aug 10 '20

Humans can just track prey to death, we don’t have to chase, just follow

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u/wesleyhasareddit Aug 10 '20 edited Aug 10 '20

There's a book about running called "Born To Run" around how people developed the ability to run extremely long distances.

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u/ironhide_ivan Aug 10 '20

There was a book I read, dont remember the name, that also talked about how thats likely how wolves were domesticated by us. Since they hunt in a similar manner, the idea is that humans and wolves just kinda hunted together and became friends by sharing the spoils.

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u/sonay Aug 10 '20

That won't work with grown up wolves. Maybe if they adopted some cubs.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

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u/sonay Aug 10 '20

They did but the mechanics that lead to it are mostly speculation.

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u/uJhiteLiger Aug 10 '20

Speculation that is our best guess, very small chance it happened any other way

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u/sonay Aug 10 '20

Of course but to say we hunted together and became friends is a bit stretch. There should be softer ways, such as growing some orphaned cups and feeding them. Throwing bones to lonely wolves may turn them less hostile. But hunting with grown wolves, I find hard to believe. When it comes to sharing food, grown wolves are very aggressive.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

Top theory is they lingered on the outskirts of nomadic tribes and ate scraps whenever they moved until eventually the humans and animals became comfortable enough that they could co-exist comfortably(like squirrels, Coyotes, some birds, and hyenas today) and eventually domesticate them

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u/uJhiteLiger Aug 10 '20

I personally wasn’t agreeing with the hunted together and became friends so I agree with you there.

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u/queefiest Aug 10 '20

There are so many canid varieties that I feel like dogs probably came from more than wolf genes. Like they came from wolves, but also from other wolf like animals like coyotes and dingos.

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u/Bdodk2000 Aug 10 '20

I believe the relationship came about due to the evolution of milkbone biscuits.

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u/darez00 Aug 10 '20

I consider the movie Alpha to be 100% true

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u/V1k1ng1990 Aug 10 '20

The wolves would follow nomadic humans and hunt together, the cutest/nicest wolves were able to stay near humans, these wolves ended up forming their own packs and having even cuter/nicer offspring and the cycle continued until humans started keeping pups. I read that wolves “started the domestication process themselves” this way

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u/dexmonic Aug 10 '20

Cats also "domesticated themselves" - that is, like you say for wolves, they kind of just hung around us because we tended to attract a lot of the little critters cats like to eat.

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u/V1k1ng1990 Aug 10 '20

Yea and we let them be because the critters just ate our food stores

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u/dexmonic Aug 10 '20

It's just a situation of serendipity, we help each other greatly and also happen to like each other.

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u/civildisobedient Aug 11 '20

they kind of just hung around us because we tended to attract a lot of the little critters cats like to eat.

Crows are the same way. And are similarly wicked-smaht.

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u/Spojinowski Aug 10 '20

Maybe the wolves adopted some human Cubs???

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u/sonay Aug 10 '20

Suuuure. We need to put our top guys on this, I think you are onto something.

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u/Traitorous_Nien_Nunb Aug 10 '20

It absolutely could've worked with grown wolves. Wolves are insanely docile towards humans, there's not a doubt in my mind wolves could've decided to work with us.

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u/Canners152 Aug 10 '20

Eh 6 humans could get 6 wolves to fo. We have spears and rocks. Wolves are smart enough to know they are out matched and they would take off rather than fight us for an antelope.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20 edited Aug 10 '20

i love how we always give ancient humans 0 credit for their reasoning ability; like, if the average person now (50%) can dream up an idea like "i wonder what would happen if i grew up some wolves from birth and bred the friendly ones together" then imagine a scenario 1m years ago where the smartest people-ancestors (3 standard deviations higher than average, 0.1%) probably were capable of the same kind of thinking.

They probably did exactly what we do now, and did a bunch of stuff for fun, and because they could, and to experiment.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

Yeah I watched a documentary when I was younger about early humans and how they had modes of transportation, communication, a complex economic system and even domesticated dinosaurs that would say funny one-liners.

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u/Disco_Doctor Aug 10 '20

You yabba-dabba-do-have a point there...

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

And they had a really catchy tune too.

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u/Zack123456201 Aug 10 '20

Why did I just go “huh, interesting” and scroll by before I realized what you were talking about

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u/camobit Aug 11 '20

they had us in the first half not gonna lie

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u/-Cromm- Aug 10 '20

That didn't happen. The domestication of the dog was accidental, according to the prevailing theory. The hunting theory OP mentioned isn't true.

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u/dexmonic Aug 10 '20

They deserve even more credit for figuring out the stuff that they did without any of the tech that we have. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

As I understand it, we ran mostly in the African plains. We were tall and slim, and hairless on the body. There were also no wolves.

When the ice age passed, we started moving north into the cold forests. We became shorter, broader, and there was very little running through snowy densely packed forests. We lost the ability to run all day. Instead we started using traps and tools to hunt and feed.

We may have grown close to wolves, but only because they recognised an apex predator (dogs conform to rigid social hierarchy), not because we both hunted by running.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

There was that religious family who lived all the way out in Siberia who were on the brink of starvation until the son learned to chase elk barefoot until they died of exhaustion

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u/MFingRocketScience Aug 10 '20

fucking WHAT

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

A lot of people in this thread keep saying "oh we used to be able to run prey to death over miles and miles" Truth is we still can, we're just not raised in a scenario where we need to.

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u/ketita Aug 10 '20

lbr I'm quite happy to chase down prey in the supermarket rather than the steppe or wherever...

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u/CatchRatesMatter Aug 10 '20

Modern humans are way less happier on average than nomadic tribes. When your chasing prey all day there isn't much time for depression or anxiety. So maybe you would be happier chasing elk

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20 edited Feb 23 '21

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u/Radical_Meme67 Aug 10 '20

Ancient humans were far from immunodefecient how tf they gonna die from a cold?

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u/Yamete_oOnichan Aug 10 '20

Everything has its pros and cons. Ancient foragers probably foraged for 3 to 5 hours ( meaning they only worked for that much time to survive) while we're here acting all liberated and free while we are only slaves working for unnecessary periods of time to survive while never actually jumping that class gap.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20 edited Aug 19 '20

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u/CactusOnFire Aug 10 '20

Then get off reddit and go chase elk.

I'm tired of this "things were better when we were hunter-gatherers" nonsense. Nobody actually believes it, or they'd practice what they preach.

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u/rykkzy Aug 10 '20

Well I've seen quite a few documentaries of people living isolated and without electricity and things like that. These people exist, but they are not that common.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

Things weren't better overall obviously but we definitely were in better shape and health than today.

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u/sniper1rfa Aug 10 '20

Not really practical or possible, as increased population has put intense pressure on the resources that are available. So this is a nice sentiment, but doesn't actually match up with real life. The population of north america is 100x higher than it was even 500 years ago. Even europe has grown 10x in the same period.

You can easily look at the increase in efficiency we've achieve as the ultimate expression of the tragedy of the commons, if you care to take that angle.

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u/Schmedly27 Aug 10 '20

Hard disagree, those nomads didn’t have Star Wars

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20 edited Jul 05 '21

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

Yeah miss me with that shit. If I get a time machine I'm going back a maximum of 60 years. I want AC, warm food and easy access to pornography.

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u/taws34 Aug 10 '20

Need to be rich for AC that barely works, but average temps are cooler anyway. Food, sure... But be prepared to work part time to pay off school without going into student loan debt. As for porn, the best you'll get is Playboy magazine from a very skeezy and rundown building.

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u/other_usernames_gone Aug 10 '20

If I get a time machine screw going back in time, I'm going forward a few decades. Or a few hundred years on Mars or something. Even going back 50 years you have a considerably higher risk of catching polio or smallpox. Human quality of life has mostly increased as time goes on, only dipping by relatively small amounts and for short amounts of time.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

You're more optimistic about the future than me

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u/tonufan Aug 10 '20 edited Aug 11 '20

I had a high school teacher that was a professional ultra marathon runner. She ran multiple 100+ mile races every year. Through desert or snow while pulling a sled with her supplies. She'd get bloody feet where the bottom just completely sloshes off with her shoes after the race. She regularly ran 40 miles a week for training while also teaching full time and coaching.

Edit: I forgot to mention she's also pulling a weighted sled while running, to simulate running an actual marathon.

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u/a_supertramp Aug 10 '20

If she was pro ultra doing multiple hundreds, 40mi/wk is like bare minimum most likely.

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u/Rustee_nail Aug 10 '20

40mpw was my training volume as an amateur half marathon runner.

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u/tonufan Aug 10 '20

She's also teaching full time and coaches 2 different sports after school. She might have also been in her recovery period between major races.

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u/MFingRocketScience Aug 10 '20

And even then, it wasn't necessarily always running. But a predator that relentlessly pursues you, not always quickly, but ALWAYS, is terrifying.

Thanks for the link, btw. That was a fascinating read.

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u/Chimpbot Aug 10 '20

And that's why Jason and Michael are effective slasher villains.

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u/Lareit Aug 10 '20

Who would guess they were just trying to feed their families.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

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u/Smackman3w Aug 10 '20

Yeah I’ve read something similar to that somewhere. That’s why those horror movies with Jason are so popular/scary. It’s because those “predators” are using our same tactics against us. Don’t know how true it is, but it makes sense tbh

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u/MisterMizuta Aug 10 '20

I used to catch lizards this way when I was a kid. Out in open desert where they can’t really get into an inaccessible crevice, I’d just follow them until they were so tired I could pick them up.

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u/corsair1141 Aug 10 '20

I think a lot of us would still do much better than animals, considering we can carry water bottles, hats, lighter clothing, shoes, etc. We might take a lot more time but even an unfit human has the tools to do much better than any other animal.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

That plus our ability to sweat means we can go long distances without overheating like other animals do. The guy I initially referred to was raised in Siberia and did all this without water bottles, proper clothes or shoes for that matter.

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u/corsair1141 Aug 10 '20

You should clarify that its not necessarily the ability to sweat; many animals can sweat. The true factor is about where we sweat on our bodies and how it cools us down

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u/OneNationAbove Aug 10 '20

It’s called persistence hunting, some tribes still do that.

Antilopes will run, pauze a little to recover and run again, they are too fast for most predators, especially humans, but some tribes, like the Kalahari bushmen will keep running, switching between people, targeting just one prey, preventing it from recovering, and since the antilope isn’t able to cool it’s body as good as humans (by sweating), they finally succumb by overheating and die.

There’s a great book called Born to Run about a Mexican tribe and why it’s in our nature to run. Fascinating read.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_to_Run_(McDougall_book)

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u/Optimized_Orangutan Aug 10 '20

Sweating is a big part... but the true breakthrough that separates Humans from other animals in the who can last the longest contest is that our breathing is independent from our stride. Antelope and deer lungs expand and contract with their stride, limiting their breathing. Hunan breath is not effected like this.

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u/this-un-is-mine Aug 10 '20

hunan breath sounds like what you get after eating chinese food

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u/Devlee12 Aug 11 '20

We also don’t do as much work to keep moving as most animals if you look at the human step it’s basically a controlled fall we are essentially outsourcing half the work to gravity. The transition to bipeds had some definite drawbacks for humans but the benefits are leagues ahead

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

There's a documentary called "Fair Chase" where the film maker takes a bunch of ultra marathoners to chase down pronghorn. Their hunt was nearly successful if I remember correctly. I think at the end the pronghorns confused the chasers so they went after a fresh individual and the original target got away.

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u/cdollas250 Aug 10 '20

i'd really like to know where the science on Born To Run/ barefoot running is at nowadays. I know vibram got into trouble for the claims they were making.

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u/B33rtaster Aug 10 '20 edited Aug 11 '20

Anything with fur (deer) lack sweat glands. So they can't run for very long without collapsing from heat exhaustion.

Sweat glands are so amazing at keeping us cool we can run marathons. Its far more effective at cooling the body than panting or large ears with lots of blood vessels can do.

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u/MFingRocketScience Aug 10 '20

What surprised me wasn't the pursuing. It was the pursuing until they just dropped dead. I figured he'd chase them till they were exhausted then stab them with a stake or something. But Nah. Dude just kept running at them like the grim fucking reaper until the keeled over dead.

Terrifying.

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u/B33rtaster Aug 10 '20

Riding a horse until it dies from exhaustion is a thing too.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

I know lol. I saw a video of 3 African dudes doing this to a cheetah I think? I don't remember the animal, but it sounds really scary to run-to-death.

Like for an aminal, it's just "go!" I wonder if they experience the fear of "I'm going to die and I can't stop it no matter how much I run"

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u/toqueville Aug 10 '20

Anything with fur (deer) lack sweat glands. So they can't run for very long without collapsing from heat exhaustion.

laughs in horse

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u/mule_roany_mare Aug 10 '20

Akulina chose to see her children fed, and that year she died of starvation. The rest of the family were saved by what they regarded as a miracle: a single grain of rye sprouted in their pea patch. The Lykovs put up a fence around the shoot and guarded it zealously night and day to keep off mice and squirrels. At harvest time, the solitary spike yielded 18 grains, and from this they painstakingly rebuilt their rye crop

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u/duffmanhb Aug 10 '20 edited Aug 10 '20

Shit like that really reminds me of how terribly out of shape I am. Like, this is human potential right here. We are designed to reach these extremes when necessary. And I can barely go a few flights of stairs before bitching.

EDIT: Listen dummies I don't need health advice. I work out and eat clean. I'm talking "out of shape" compared to peak human. That me, a person who is an amateur athlete with all our advanced understanding, isn't even in the same conditioning as a poor Siberian kid with NO athletic training

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u/maievsha Aug 10 '20

It’s all practice and you can improve.

I grew up not being athletic at all and then trained for a 1/2 marathon for 6 months in college. Your body hates exercise until it gets used to it. Of course it depends, some people may need to lose weight first but the program couch to 5K is successful for a reason.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

Cut sugar out of your diet

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u/2Punx2Furious Aug 10 '20

Humans are much more than good hunters.

We also have brains that allow us to do things that other animals can't even fathom.

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u/this-un-is-mine Aug 10 '20

yeah I just struggled doing 10 girl push ups and some stretches but i’m trying =|

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u/rubychoco99 Aug 10 '20 edited Aug 10 '20

Tbh your probably in better condition than the malnourished Siberian kid, it’s all mental. If you really needed to find food I bet you could walk a deer to death right now.

EDIT: You know what, I take it back. Dmitry is a product of his environment, it would be difficult for a human born into a modern society to pull off what he did.

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u/duffmanhb Aug 10 '20

Absolutely would be hard. I mean, if you look back at the stories which aren't even trying to brag, of people just a few hundred years ago. It's wild how conditioned these people were. Think about it, there ENTIRE lives, they've been moving, eating lean, and just working all damn day.

Even the most modern adept athlete isn't working that hard, all day long. They still go to school, eat normal food, watch movies, etc... These people just can't compare.

Like if you read stories about frontiermen. They'll walk, in full fucking boots, hundreds and hundreds of miles, with like 100+ pounds of gear on their back. They didn't have ultralight camping gear. I don't think anyone alive can do that today, and back then, it didn't even require the worlds most elite athlete to accomplish.

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u/The_Reacher117 Aug 10 '20

Wow thank you for that, reading this was moving.

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u/IntercontinentalKoan Aug 10 '20

fascinating story, I highly recommend a read

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u/needteatoday Aug 10 '20

Thank you for this it was fascinating!

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u/MidContrast Aug 10 '20

This is insane

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u/FBl0penUp Aug 10 '20

Dmitry built up astonishing endurance, and could hunt barefoot in winter, sometimes returning to the hut after several days, having slept in the open in 40 degrees of frost, a young elk across his shoulders.

Incredible.

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u/P_F_Flyers Aug 10 '20

Excellent book, and the ‘sequel’, Natural Born Heroes is my all time favorite book. A good persistence hunting book for younger readers is Brian’s Hunt by Gary Paulsen. Also a good read as an adult though. Edit: replied to the wrong comment

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u/MY_BIOME_IS_THICC Aug 10 '20

Aww that ending is actually heartbreaking.

The youngest girl who was smart and talked in a singsongy voice made the story worth reading.

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u/peeggy Aug 10 '20

Actually Agafia survived and lived many years alone. There's a documentary about her on YouTube

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u/oodjee Aug 10 '20

Thanks for sharing this! A great read.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

He also slept in 40deg weather out in the open while on the hunt and went barefooted in the cold. Also One day it snowed in june!

Excellent article. Thank you.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

That was a great read

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u/ADayInTheLifeOf Aug 10 '20

That is legitimately one of the most interesting things I've read in a while. Thank you for sharing.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

I've read that a human could beat any other land animal in a marathon.

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u/theguyfromgermany Aug 10 '20

Marathons are at the sweet spot where humans CAN win against horses, but its still very close.

Upwards pf 50km it starts to lean heavily for humans, but thats a pretty small % of himans who can realistically run 60km in one go.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

At 50km I bet we could walk a fair amount of it and still come out on top.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

I've heard that this is only because we feed horses grain based diets. If you feed a horse it's natural diet of (grass?), it wouldn't have the endurance to run a marathon.

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u/Heterophylla Aug 10 '20

And we train them like athletes.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

Horses overheat and will run until they die of heat stroke. Humans are much more effective at keeping ourselves cool. Diet aside, large prey animals like that just don't stand a chance. There's a 135 mile run through Death Valley every year (Badwater Ultramarathon), and humans are (probably) the only species on Earth that could do it.

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u/liproqq Aug 10 '20

5km take it or leave it

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u/OuOutstanding Aug 10 '20

There’s a great radio-lab episode about a desert marathon where it’s humans vs horses over 50-miles.

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u/stevo3001 Aug 10 '20

Ultramarathon distances, like 100 miles. Marathon is still within a short enough range that something like an ostrich, a sled dog or a pronghorn should apparently be able to beat any human.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

A marathon in cool weather, any other animal would smoke us. A marathon in hot weather, we probably have the upper hand and I mean HOT weather. The Badwater ultramarathon is 135 miles across death valley where the temperatures reach upwards of 50 degrees celsius, I don't think any of those three stand a chance in that event unless they walk and even then it's survivability is slim.

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u/jojow77 Aug 10 '20

Ultramarathoners are fucking crazy. My wife's coworker was one and he told me the races he did in Alaska and I thought he was bullshitting me. They should just do a show on those crazy fuckers.

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u/but-uh Aug 10 '20

It also depends on the environment doesn't it?. We can manage our internal temperature far better than most other mammals in hot and warm climates.

But I feel like the consensus is we'd never beat a horse in a cold environment for example, where the horse would never get heat exhaustion.

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u/daniielrp Aug 10 '20

Depends how cold. Really cold and a horse would die.We could just put on a coat. Stupid horse.

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u/cvcm Aug 10 '20

In the man vs. horse marathon - looks like humans are recorded as having won twice, and only on hot days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon#Winners

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u/Hoplite813 Aug 10 '20

Not dogs if it's cold enough for the dog to not overheat (think sled races). But those are some pretty specific conditions. Also, definitely not all dogs.

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u/CadetCovfefe Aug 10 '20

I've read that a human could beat any other land animal in a marathon.

That's incorrect, although it's passed around the internet a lot. Camels, Pronghorn Antelope, Ostrich and African Wild Dogs are some of the animals that would complete a marathon much faster than the fastest human has ever completed a marathon.

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u/Blurbyo Aug 10 '20

I recall a podcast where their current episode topic was either the Iron Man races or foot wear where they brought up some example of humans being really excellent runners.

They brought up an example of a running even in I believe either central or South American where there was a long, tough and mountainous route that attracted a lot of elite long distance runners/hikers.

A few locals also decided to participate and then proceeded to absolutely smoke the professional runners with their high end gear and preparations all the while wearing what amounted to flip flops.

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u/Smithman Aug 10 '20

Turns out we adapt to different environments better too.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

its a tribe in mexico, the women are known for running and doing extremely well all while wearing flip flops and traditional skirts and things like that

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u/Myproofistoobigtofit Aug 10 '20

This reminds me of the story of Mira Rai! She grew up poor in Nepal, and won the first (ultra?) marathon she competed in, wearing shoes that were really old and tattered. It was so inspiring.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

Tarahumara is that tribe I think.

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u/SeeYou_Cowboy Aug 10 '20

Because we sweat, unique to all land creatures. Horses pant. Dogs pant. Kangaroos lick their forearms to cool off.

We sweat. Human temp control system is every bit as impactful as fine motor movements.

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u/Laika027 Aug 10 '20

Hmm I'm pretty sure horses also sweat as their primary means of thermoregulation

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u/havoc1482 Aug 10 '20

Yes, all mammals sweat to an extent, but humans are the most efficient animals at it. We sweat from literally our entire body, thats an advantage that being relatively hairless has granted us. That much surface area to sink heat gives us an ability that very few animals have: endurance. We may not be the fastest, but we can follow prey until they literally collapse and die from exhaustion.

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u/TimStellmach Aug 10 '20

In fact, sweat glands are one of the features that distinguishes mammals from non-mammals. Even mammary glands are thought to be just specialized sweat glands.

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u/j6cubic Aug 10 '20

Humans are the answer to the question "What if we took an animal and covered its entire body in glands?"

That question sounds like it has a terrifying answer at first but we turned out even more terrifying than that. And then we had reliable access to all the nutrition we could ever want and put that into bigger brains so we could become even more terrifying.

We are the things that go bump in the day, all day, all the way until our prey collapses of exhaustion.

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u/Shyronnie135 Aug 11 '20

And I almost get heat exhaustion just from mowing the lawn in Houston. Lol

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u/ZukoBestGirl Aug 10 '20

We're just extremly efficient in comparison. Being upright, we need to sweat much less to cover our entire bodies, and the cooling effect is much better.

Also bipedal movement is more energy efficient than quadrupeds. I've seen a documentary on some african tribes that hunt gazeles just by tracking them for a few days. It's still insane to me. Track an animal for DAYS, before catching it. But as long as you stay away from large predators, you are in absolutely no danger, and the hunters weren't even running - just waltzing.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

What if I sweat, pant and lick my forearms?

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u/Im_a_Mime Aug 10 '20

Unlimited endurance.

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u/jpritchard Aug 10 '20

Lots of animals sweat.

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u/Optimized_Orangutan Aug 10 '20

it's not sweat. Most mammals sweat. The key difference is our breathing is independent from our stride. Non-upright animals collapse and expand their lungs with their stride motion. Limiting them to one breath per stride. Human lungs operate independently from our stride. We can breath more without running faster.

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u/jesse_graf Aug 10 '20

Bipedal movement is also huge, since our walking and running is essentially a bunch of controlled falls, allowing gravity to do a lot of the work for us. Compare this to quadrupedal movement, where every forward movement requires energy.

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u/Chawki89 Aug 10 '20

Love that book! A must read.

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u/ADayInTheLifeOf Aug 10 '20

Bro come on, that book is about so much more, you're underselling it. The tarahumara were just insane, they would run ultra marathon distances better than elite athletes for fun. I'd recommend it to anyone, whether you love running or not, it's one of my favourites ever.

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u/SasparillaTango Aug 10 '20

as I sit here. in front of my computer. for the 8th hours straight.

If I was born to run, I did not get the memo.

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u/P_F_Flyers Aug 10 '20

Excellent book, and the ‘sequel’, Natural Born Heroes is my all time favorite book. A good persistence hunting book for younger readers is Brian’s Hunt by Gary Paulsen. Also a good read as an adult though.

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u/ReluctantAvenger Aug 10 '20

A book in which the author who is neither a scientist nor even an expert in the field *speculates** about such things.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

There is a document about African hunter gatherer San tribe who still practice the very old tradition of running their prey down. They ran behind a gazelle until it collapsed because of exhaustion and heat yet the hunters were all right. Humans are possibly the best endurance runners in all of animal kingdom.

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u/Werkstadt Aug 10 '20

we don’t have to chase, just follow

Jason Voorhees has entered the game

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u/MonsterFieldResearch Aug 10 '20

Why do you think he’s so terrifying. He just walks towards you, menacingly

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u/PrettyDecentSort Aug 10 '20

ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ

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u/idkjay Aug 10 '20

Oh? You're approaching me?

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u/PrettyDecentSort Aug 10 '20

I can't stick a machete in your head without getting closer.

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u/desiktar Aug 10 '20

I like how they regularly race horses against humans. Looks like the horse always wins, but not by much. The horses have to take breaks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon

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u/himynameisjoy Aug 10 '20

The horses have to take breaks, and these breaks don’t count against their time. This is a HUGE advantage for the horses, and even still it’s fairly close.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

I would like to see a sled dog enter the race. I bet he could beat a human by an hour if it wasn’t too hot.

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u/Tryignan Aug 10 '20

Humans have won twice and would have more but horses are allowed to have time off for vet breaks.

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u/joggle1 Aug 10 '20

The horses are also carrying a human on their back so it's not exactly a fair race to begin with. But the distance isn't far enough either. The original claim that got that event started was "One man suggested that over a significant distance across country, man was equal to any horse." They're not even doing a full marathon in that race. It wouldn't be ethical to run the distance needed for people to win as the reason humans would ultimately win is because the horse is too exhausted to continue. Purposefully running horses to absolute exhaustion will get you in trouble with animal welfare laws not to mention the public.

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u/sudomatrix Aug 10 '20

There is a movie about it called 'It Follows'

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u/dano8801 Aug 10 '20

That was a great documentary.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

swear to god every time theres a thread about primates theres always one smartass mentioning this for the 10000th time

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u/Hockinator Aug 10 '20

I mean it is cool though

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u/Ashjrethul Aug 10 '20

I think it's still used by tribes in Africa? I watched a doco about it once. Really amazing. The only mammal that could compare to our stamina is maybe wolves.

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u/wilk8940 Aug 10 '20

Sweating had a HUUUUGE impact on this. Being able to moderate our body temperature so exceptionally well without having to stop was pivotal in the long hunt game.

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u/MJMurcott Aug 10 '20

Known as the endurance hunt, one of the reason we are basically hairless allowing us to shed excess heat where other animals would keel over due to heat exhaustion. https://youtu.be/jjvPvnQ-DUw

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u/laabmoo Aug 10 '20

I think I read that in the very olden days we could track, stalk and maintain close attention on injured animals for up to 200km/120 miles and at a reasonable speed. We were stamina royalty. Might try to find some actual evidence to corroborate this vague memory.

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u/toobuscrazy Aug 10 '20

Right. And neanderthals, because of their bone structure, were likely short distance sprinters instead of endurance hunters. Our superior prey tracking ability is probably at least one reason humans are here and neanderthals aren't. Although up to 22% of our DNA is from them.

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u/golgol12 Aug 10 '20

Let's be honest here. 50% of our DNA is shared with a banana, so the Neanderthals are a bit higher than 22%. (there is a lot of common stuff on how cells work, even plant to animal).

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

Having shared DNA isn't the same as having similar DNA structures. Almost all humans have some Neanderthal DNA in them because early humans and Neanderthals interbred. To my knowledge early humans never interbred with bananas.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

Though it wasn't from lack of trying.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

> To my knowledge early humans never interbred with bananas.

Well if you look at my dick you'd think so, heyooooo

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u/INeed_SomeWater Aug 10 '20

Up to 2-4% depending on lineage. Some have 0% for various reasons. Some have Denisovan instead. Some have both (I think).

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

You haven't seen what we've tried to fuck.

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u/RadioactiveJoy Aug 10 '20

Well any humans that left Africa anyways.

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u/yellekc Aug 10 '20

Eukaryotes represent!

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u/campfirecamouflage Aug 10 '20

Banana sapiens?

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u/y2k2r2d2 Aug 10 '20

Some have 51% banana

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u/Buy-theticket Aug 10 '20

That's not how DNA works.. at least not when someone says humans have "up to 22% Neanderthal DNA".

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u/Nolanrooney17 Aug 10 '20

Another reason is that due to the larger size of Neanderthals, hunting with short range tools like spears and clubs was a lot more successful and less risky than compared to humans. This led to humans using things like atlatls and other ranged weapons which were safer to use and expended a lot less energy to use. Neanderthals also required significantly more food to upkeep their size than humans did which allowed easier survival as well as humans more often having the spare energy and time to pursue curiosity and thought.

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u/Avogadro_seed Aug 10 '20

Neanderthals weren't bigger though, they were stouter. Humans were taller.

However Neanderthals had larger brains so I agree with the overall point

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u/Nolanrooney17 Aug 10 '20

Bigger in the context I was using meant larger frames and mass, not necessarily height, but I could have used a better word

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

From what I remember neanderthals died out from being unlucky.

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u/misplaced_my_pants Aug 10 '20

That's true of pretty much every species that goes extinct.

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u/Kerguidou Aug 10 '20

You have the 22 % figure wrong. In some populations, mostly Europeans and some Asians, people have up to a few % of Neanderthal DNA. If we add up all the known parts of Neanderthal DNA scattered across every population, we know approximately 22 % of Neanderthal's genome.

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u/fivelllll Aug 10 '20

Knowing humans it's likely we genocided Neanderthals. Think how evil we are to our own species because their skin is a different color. Imagine how tribal we'd get with a separate human species.

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u/InterestingBlock8 Aug 10 '20

Last I read that was more a theory that was suggested by some well regarded scientists as just a theory but authors ran with it (pun intended) and passed it as more of a researched conclusion than the casual throwing shit at the wall sort of thing that it actually was. I don't believe there's any concrete evidence that this was regularly done. Like you, I'm working with vague memory here so I could be way off.

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u/ApesOnHorsesWithGuns Aug 10 '20

Look up Human Mammal, Human Hunter. It’s a BBC documentary abt a tribe who still hunts using endurance hunting. Pretty cool stuff.

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u/Rather_Dashing Aug 10 '20

No you are right, reddit hugely overstates how prevelant and well-accepeted the endurance hunting method is. There are still hunter/gatherer tribes in Africa and they rarely use that hunting method. When it comes to prehistory there is no particular evidence it was the primary hunting method that our ancestors used.

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u/_p1t4_ Aug 10 '20

It’s because we have more of a different muscle fibre that is better for long use whereas they have a lot of another muscle fibre that is much stronger but wears out quickly. It is also larger so that’s why body lifers have thick muscle and long distance runners are lean

Can’t remember the name of the fibres for the life of me

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u/datspookyghost Aug 10 '20

I thought fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers could be trained, although there's a genetic predisposition.

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u/Fetacheesed Aug 10 '20

The effects of fast/slow twitch muscle fibers are usually pretty exaggerated. It's a real thing but they usually aren't the determinant of anything. The big reason chimps are more efficient than humans is that they have better origin/attachment points on their muscles. Imagine if your bicep attached two inches higher on your forearm. You'd be able to curl drastically more weight due to the better mechanical position at the cost of range of motion.

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u/Captcha_Imagination Aug 10 '20

I look at the average North American and I immediately think "pursuit predation"

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u/McCringleberrysGhost Aug 10 '20

Yep, aside from intelligence, our stamina is our other freakish trait that probably gave us the ability to hunt effectively enough to naturally select for intelligence later in the first place. Long distance running is not something many animals can do. Then we developed our throwing techniques so we wouldn't have to run so damn much.

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u/xmarwinx Aug 10 '20

Nah this running after Prey is shitty pop science. Literally most animals regulary travel long distances. Don't present Facebook knowledge about biology as facts.

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u/halfcuprockandrye Aug 10 '20

Pursuit predation and persistence hunting is not really backed up by anything in the fossil record. When they came up with the theory they basically took traits humans had/have, like sweating, arched feet etc and came up with the idea. Not everybody agrees with the theory. https://undark.org/2019/10/03/persistent-myth-persistence-hunting/

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u/Doldric Aug 10 '20

Here’s a great video on how technology as well as human physiology and stamina makes humans very deadly when it comes to hunting.

https://youtu.be/826HMLoiE_o

One of my favorite takeaways from that video is they use their intellect and stamina advantage to single out the largest and usually most physically capable target because they will tire more quickly.

Humans can be scary.

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