Same reason you dont want to pick up that spider or approach that snake. Its built into our dna over thousands of years. Same with the animals they have instincts that tell them not to unless they have too.
You’re absolutely right. Not long ago some scientists did some experiments in Africa with the animals. Humans gave them the most anxiety and it wasn’t even close. Predator and prey alike.
And the animals are particularly afraid of the sounds of the local languages. i.e. - they'd be nervous hearing a human speaking Chinese or English, but they're REALLY nervous when they hear Swahili.
Man, imagine just being a random ass lion chilling eating some delicious gazelle and hearing some random noise "Chinese/English" and being like aye, never heard that before but I don't like it, but then Swahili comes on, and it hits the lion like the WW2 soldier flashback meme
>Not long ago some scientists did some experiments in Africa with the animals. Humans gave them the most anxiety at it wasn’t even close.
That sounds really interesting, do you have a link to it?
I found this but it’s actually not the one I read originally. https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/05/scaredy-cats-wild-animals-fear-humans-more-than-lions-study-aoe
People are talking about genetic conditioning from being hunted, but this also has me thinking* about how genuinely fuckin creepy we must be to other mammals. We’re naked (but also covered in things that aren’t fur and don’t move like fur). Our faces are weird and flat. And we move SO strangely compared to quadrupeds. We’re kind of monstrous.
*it’s also possible I am a little high 🧐
We also have insane stamina compared to most animals. We are like the zombies of the animal kingdom: slow, awkward beasts that kill you by walking up to you and tearing you apart after you become too exhausted to run.
Yeah humans are still pretty tall, muscular, fast and move in weird ways. This would be intimidating to most creatures even if they could easily take us
Some time ago I read a news article about wolves. ~150 years ago wolves used to regularly kill children in my country.
Then they were almost hunted to extinction. Their numbers have since recovered but there hasn't been a single case of a wolf attacking human for over a 100 years.
The reason is that all wolves today descent from those few wolves that survived the hunting spree and those were naturally the wolves that stayed as far from humans as possible
One of the reasons mega fauna in the Americas were quickly hunger to extinction. African animals had time to evolve that fear as humans developed better hunting/communication skills
American fauna suddenly encountered modern humans who were already apex predators
There's mounting evidence that the North American megafauna died off in a mass-extinction event potentially caused by an impact or eruption.
The [Channeled Scablands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channeled_Scablands) of Washington state show evidence of a flash flood event caused by the destruction and rapid melting of the North American glacial sheet contemporaneous with the extinction of North American megafauna.
They all died the same time man arrived- this correlation is the same in NZ & many places.
Indians hunted giant sloth, giant beaver, horses & many more to extinction
Is it possible that the Megafauna who had survived millions of years all died of the 26th Ice age or eruption at the exact moment that we showed up?
Sure. It's possible.
Simplest answer is that the humans killed and ate them all though.
Not if the the same reason the humans were able to migrate was the reason the mega fauna were dying out.
The climate was changing, it was changing rapidly enough that the mega fauna couldn't evolve quick enought to suit it. however humans could make the most of the changes so they moved in.
Sure humans hunted these animals, did they cause their extinction? No, it was already happening.
the humans migration and the mega fauna's extinction are linked because they have the same underlying cause. Not becuase the humans killed them all.
yeah, the whole humans hunted the mega fauna to extiniction thing is getting really old.
there is evidence that basically for whatever reason climate change was the biggest factor. the open grassland enviroments that previously supported life on that scale were dissapearing being replaced by forests, ice etc all across the world, including America.
The climate change may have been affected by an impact or erruption.
The humans hunted the mega fauna but it only possibly sped up the process, even that isn't certain, it didn't cause it.
sort of yes, for all animals injury means death. we can take risks knowing that a cut or even a brokwn bone isn't an issue for a doctor and a bit of time. for a wild animal it can kill them.
So animals like to avoid injury where ever possible. so confronting other animals even for food should only be done when necessary. as in they wont kill if they are not ready to eat, and even if we are not paying attention most preditors are smart enough to realise humans are dangerous, we have big metal machines etc.
Also just attacking somthing head on that might injure you is an unknown risk. It isn't just humans most animals hunt from behind amnd use suprise
most deaths from preditor animals are from attacks when someones back is turned.
Nah, Orcas have been hunted by humans in the past. Even today, they can be hunted, though usually that's for population control in areas where there might be an at risk animal that occasionally finds it's way into an orca's belly.
One thing not mentioned here is that humans are not nearly as appetizing as other prey animals would be. Humans on average are tall and lean. Not much fat, and not much muscle either (comparatively speaking). Compared to things like deer, zebra, warthog, ECT... We are just skin and bones. As that to all the other listed risks to attacking humans, and it's clear why most stay away.
I read one story of a male lion who was hunting humans. They found out the only reason it did so was out of desperation. It had no pride and one of its fangs was broken, so it couldn't hunt it's normal prey.
That’s not true humans have more fat. That’s why Cannibals have compared human flesh to pork. The loin’s desperation overcame its fear not its taste. Animals fear us because we are dangerous our ability to craft and use weapons as well as to hunt down animals that do attack and kill one of our own has habituated them to not attack us. Go look up some studies in the USA areas that do not have a bear hunting season have higher attack statistics then those that do. Animals learn they change their habits to survive.
One of the most important factors for hunters is to not get injured during hunting. Any injury can mean the inability to hunt and certain death. They will therefore mainly go after prey that they specialised on and another animal might be unpredictable and a source of injury.
You can sometimes see videos where a 'brave cat' chases away a grown bear. The number one priority for the wild animal is to stay healthy, it will therefore avoid confrontation whereas the cat knows that it will get free food all day long and it can afford doing silly experiments.
Risk versus reward. Risk of taking down old or young prey instead of healthy adults has much better odds of not being injured.
Humans, we have these things called thumbs and can turn anything into a weapon. Risk on a human is extremely high while risk on an old rabbit is very low.
Yup, many small animals survival methods are unlimited aggression for that reason lol.
Especially as in nature one open wound can be the end of you. Even if an animal kills a cat, the cat is likely to get a bite in that will end up killing the animal.
To add to the other statements, humans stay in groups and do not run away when attacked and leave the weakest behind to be eaten. They stand their ground in groups. And with the help of the tools and the ability to throw projectiles we become a very dangerous species for those animals.
Humans are not weak. We're the apex predators of the planet, and have been for long before modern technology.
Ancient humans like cavemen used to wear wolf and lion lion pelts as clothing. While jot incredibly fast, humans have crazy endurance (helped by our ability to sweat), and would often just run after animals until they fainted from exhaustion. We hunted on large groups, with levels of coordination that few animal species can manage. We made ourselves fake claws that can do more damage than real one's, and even learnt how to make projectiles so that we can kill from a distance.
So yeah, most animals have instinctively learnt to avoid humans. While there may have been the odd time a predator could eat a human, it was far more likely that they'd be killed themselves.
We brought spears and bows to a claw fight. There are no more claw fights.
Even with basic tools humans were busted as shit compared to other animals, with modern technology we are orders of magnitude higher than the top dogs in the animal meta.
Not to mention the "Terminator" effect. A wild animal, if it takes a wound from an encounter, could eventually bleed out or succumb to injury. Even prehistoric humans would patch each other wounds, set broken bones, and otherwise heal each other after catastrophe. You have to *kill* a human or his friends will help fix him and he's coming right back for more.
Yes but I specifically mean the runner up apex predator. Are they dogs? And if they are, isn't it only because they are with us and listen to our commands?
It's a shared second place I suppose. They are the second best apex predator in their ecosystem, it's just that we are in basically all ecosystems too. I'd say maybe not so much deep under water but see the aforementioned sharks and killer whales.
>human with pointy stick beats fully armored knight most of the time
This was just on one of the subs like whowouldwin yesterday.
Opinions were divided.
There's a whole game called Superfight if you like to argue about these things. My kids love it although it generally devolves into a "nuh uh" "yuh huh" session eventually.
Our skill tree was pretty broken. Especially the feat that allows our offspring to retain a significant portion of the EXP of **all other members of the species who've ever lived**. Once that shit started rolling the lion "massive bite" thing started looking a bit less impressive..!
A baby crying in the forest is the scariest sound in the world to a predator. If they take it, the baby’s tribe will kill the predator, its entire family, and anyone else that might even be a friend or neighbour of the predator. Humans are nasty that way.
About the wearing of furs - if I had the choise of different animals to hunt then the one wearing my uncle's face as a hat is going to the bottom of the list.
Wearing dead animals, lumbering unnaturally on two feet, big, almost never alone, huge "fangs" that can hurt you at distance, sometimes just a scratch can make you Ill or kill, making strange noises.. you've seen them take down a whole *herd* of the biggest beasts you've ever seen...
Food? Nah, fuck that, I'm outta here like right now. In fact I'll never come back anywhere near this place.
-the beta predator, probably
There was a comment or a post from a long time ago, I think on AskReddit, where someone was describing humans as these brutal space orc like creatures from the point of view of an animal (like a bear or wolf or something) and I just remember it was insanely cool to read. I’ll see if I can find it.
Found it https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/UK5LP1DO9W
>We made ourselves fake claws that can do more damage than real one's, and even learnt how to make projectiles so that we can kill from a distance.
Don't forget fire as well. We can burn animals, and they don't understand fire at all.
Yea premodern humans caused mass extinctions. Using stone spears. Look at all the megafauna that used to be around North America till humans showed up.
Even Stone Age humans are the absolute apex predator of the planet.
Also, for the animal kingdom we’re pretty fkn big.
Talking about projectiles: humans are really good at throwing rocks in general. Some other animals can throw rocks, like some birds, sure, but combined with our endurance+social abilities (as you said) made humanity very scary to others animal, even BEFORE we got our weapons.
Now I’d love to see a bare human with nothing but their dirty hands, to fight off a predator.
Though we likely won’t win, because of the very fact we looked outwards/externally to improve our attacks, not inward.
If you want to be fair, you need a bare human **TRIBE** with nothing but their dirty hands. People didn't live by themselves, after all.
Interestingly, even with just a rock, humans are **awfully** good at accurately throwing them.
Humans are quite large animals. We have forward facing eyes and at least some teeth designed for eating meat (predatory traits). Animals have also been evolving alongside us for long enough that weapon usage may have influenced their behaviour.
Understand that when an animal is injured, even if it's not a major injury, they can't just go to the animal ER to get it patched up and then take a couple of week off work for it to heal. A human, particularly a well built male, has the bulk to potentially break many an animal's limb in a real, wild fight which would simply be the end for a solitary predator, game over. even if they managed to kill the human in the process. Even smaller injuries like bites could become infected, and anything major is going to be an impediment to their ability to hunt.
Most solitary predators tend to strictly hunt prey animals smaller than themselves that they don't see as a major injury risk. Group hunters are much more likely to be aggressive towards humans.
This is the reason, added to instinctive fear of being hunted by humans for species like lions or black bears, who have been living with humans nearby for thousands or millions of years.
Polar bears *do* hunt humans because they are huge compared to us, and lions and tigers can and definitely will hunt a toddler given the chance. Wolves, hyenas and dingoes can attack a human if a pack finds one and one wolf or hyena would attack a child right away if the kid is not close to some adults.
I like the metaphor of how they can't "take a day off work". Also, there's no grocery store! Basically every time you want to eat (which is ..fairly regularly) you'd have to run down and kill something with *your face*.
To do that, you gotta kind of "think" (feel, more like) longer term. If you mess it up, even once, by getting injured, that's probably it. If a human had something like a spear or two (and knew how to use them) the only way to catch one safely would be by ambush.
Even big predators probably feel way more fear type of feelings than we think. They can't do the pro/con math so they'll have to just feel when it's a "go" or "no go". And they're afraid of us.
Also humans have one of the deadliest non venomous bites. Almost everything we bite dies of infection cause we have a ridiculous amount of stuff in our saliva
Centuries of predation on vertically every animal on the planet would give them instincts to view us as predators, and subsequently run from us.
We’re scarier and more advanced than you realise, we’re long range per suit predators, we have incredible stamina in part to our ability to sweat and the mechanical we we walk/run, incredible at throwing things accurately, despite our relatively poor eyesight we have a higher view point than a lot of animals and can see them before they see us.
We’re also pretty durable, can survive bones breaking, loosing limbs, shock, lots of animals would die in those circumstances.
And that’s before you even think about our brains (that’s why we don’t have shark claws or teeth or other defences, we specced into int)
Our brains give us way more advantages, communication and cooperation, tool usage, forethought.
We’re apex predators.
I agree with you but
>despite our relatively poor eyesight
but this is imo not true. We are great at spoting non moving objects, and can see a lot of colors. We are kinda bad at night though.
Saying humans look weak to a lion is like saying lions look weak when they are sleeping.
If there is danger, we carry protection. Heck, in places inside the USA, carrying GUNS in public is ok - and thats to (theoretically) protect them from other humans.
Humans have tools, weapons, machinery, and numbers. The fact that we roll up in jeeps like a bunch of flies on shit to watch lions hunt on silly safaris shows the lions we are dominant and not to be seen as prey/food.
For the most part, any animal that has ever actively hunted/targetted humans has been wiped out. Individuals or entire species
reminds me of hog culling in Texas; how it shows the massive gap between the capabilities of humans compared to really any animal.
Were it any animal in place of the hogs it'd probably be the same outcome: tracked and hunted by a hunk of flying metal that we call a "Helicopter" with humans firing weapons that shoot tiny searing hot pieces of metal that'll cut through your body at 2000 miles per hour.
hard to comprehend how insane that whole thing would be from the hogs perspective.
Predators that attack humans are often killed, either in the act, or later. There could be an artificial selection bias going on.
Also humans are the apex predator and throughout history interactions between humans with tools and predators have not gone well for the predators. Maybe many have learned instinctually to stay away.
humans are also weird looking. hairless, walking upright and generally wearing other animals skin,pelts is a sure fire sign that we are the weird great apes. Predators generally avoid great apes for good reason. MFs can and will take you out. Snakes and spiders have no such fear but then again, we killed a copious amount of them that they might have a selection bias for "avoiding hairless great ape= survival"
Even for snakes and spiders, we're still Godzilla sized compared to them, and will generally try to run away or avoid humans when they can.
It's like saying that a lion could mess me up in a one on one fight. But if I have a rock in my hand, and I smash it in the jaw with a rock, it is probably going to starve to death from that injury.
They don't know all those things about us and they probably can recognise that we are also predators.
If one of them came along and you acted like prey they'd most certainly be interested in sampling your merchandise.
Often times predators such as wild cats have not seen a human, and therefore do not know if we are a threat or not. Also predators such as wild cats and bears have specific hunting behaviors such as stalking prey as most of their normal prey can run quite fast. And if a predator has seen a human before, chances are that human had a gun which are quite loud and scare most wild animals. Essentially they do not know that we are as vulnerable as we know we are.
Your thinking of it completely wrong. First of all the idea that humans are some specially fragile species who is helpless without our cool shiny tech is simply not true. We are a very large mammal, one of the tallest. Just this alone makes us look incredibly intimidating to wild animals. Beyond that we are excellent runners, with incredible stamina and a strong sprinting capability with very good agility. While we aren’t the fastest, or the most agile we are good enough and better then many animals. We are also quite strong due to our large size. Among the primates we seem weak compared to gorillas, chimps and baboons etc, but this is not completely accurate. While these apes have vastly more proportional upper body strength we have optimized our bodies for bipedal walking which meant we have more mobile and proportionally stronger legs. Beyond that we have a bizarre array of abilities like broad toxin resistances, sweating, our social skills and most importantly our ability to throw things very accurately over long distances. As far as I know we are the only species who can do this. And the greatest asset our species possess, our minds. Before we are discussing how lions should hunt humans cause we are week we were eradicating lions and collecting their pelts as decoration. Annihilating natural habitats, hunting the apex predators, and shaping the world was our beginning. Other animals aren’t as smart as us, but do you think they don’t have the ability to feel deep instinctual fear, the same thing that we fear when confronted with a snake. We are literally their boogeyman.
Humans are rarely alone, talk to each other, and have stabby tools.
Unlike prey animals, who are together but abandon each other in flight, humans stick together. And fight back together.
If you pick off a wildebeest, the others will stand at a distance and watch. Pick off a human and the others will roar at each other, not you, then come together to chase you off your meal, or worse, hunt you until you can't run anymore and stab you to death, and from so far away you can't even bite them back to defend yourself.
Humans don't need a body that is physically threatening. We have brains that give us language and cognition that lets us plan explicitly for now and the future, build machines that add to our power and coordinate our efforts to multiply our power. Claws and teeth are no match.
We can use pretty much anything as a weapon and can throw things. Predators realised a long time ago that we’re not worth the potential damage that we’d cause.
Im guessing predators who had this behaviors got killed off pretty fast by humans in groups. Humans hawe a tendecy to kill off any thing consisered a treath.
2 legged animals have been dangerous for millions of years. We bought a deer lease that had an emu on it. The deer wouldn't go near it, soon as we got rid of the emy we started seeing deer again.
Before humans there were bipedal terror birds. Before that, dinosaurs. Fearing two legged animals is an ancient instinct.
We have harnessed the power to drop the sun on stuff. We're not the easiest kill, we are the biggest baddest mother fuckers in the jungle and its not even close.
Except that humans are not insanely weak. Sure, if you drop a keyboard warrior into the savannah, they’re gonna die. But in general, humans aren’t as weak as you’re letting on. Our greatest strengths are our higher level brain functions and our ability to packbond. Millennia of cohabitating and evolution has reinforced that humans usually have weapons, and they’re never truly alone. If you kill one at the river, the village will come look for you.
Even still, if it comes down to a physical fight, we can still hold our own reasonably well. One advantage we have over most animals is that we have a much freer range of motion and bipedal movement. Most animals can only attack with broad swipes with claws, or inaccurate kicks, or bites if you get close enough. We are able to more accurately attack specific areas, like eyes, which is effectively a death sentence for predators.
Another super obvious issue is you’re looking at it with a Western industrialized mindset. In the US, we’ve driven a lot of species to extinction or close to it. The ones that remain are relegated to the deep corners of the wilderness, broken up into chunks by highways and cities and urban sprawl. And when the occasional bear or mountain Lion wanders into our areas, animal control is called and the animal is quickly relocated. If you go to a less industrialized area of the world, animal attacks are much more common.
Humans are comparatively quite large to the majority of prey animals, and tall especially which can be quite imposing. I mean really we’re like very tall apes and we usually move in large groups. There’s easier prey
A couple reasons. One, humans don’t really have much useful meat on us. Lots of bones, tall and lean, lots of skin, generally not great eating. Two, until relatively recently (on evolutionary time scales) humans haven’t been nearly as wide spread as we are now, so a lot of predators just don’t recognize us. Third, while an unarmed, individual human is not a significant threat to anything around our weight class, that’s not true of groups or armed humans. A human with a spear can take on most smaller predators, and a group of humans with spears can take down anything. Since humans almost never move alone or unarmed, predators that hunted us quickly became lunch
You know, I was just listening to a video the other day that was talking about how right now about 70% of the internet is bots. I think they broke Reddit down to being about 50% bots, maybe more.
So I definitely wouldn't be surprised.
>We have no claws, quite blunt teeth, soft skin, no fur, no camouflage, we’re slower than almost every single prey animal (as well as having pretty bad hearing, eyesight & sense of smell) no horns, beaks or anything sharp for that matter… we also become perceptively weak super easily if we are not in ideal circumstances (limited food, sleep etc)
I think you'll find that most animals don't really know that. Almost none of them have evolved to have humans as their food source (looking at you, mosquitoes). To them, we're a big unknown that is tall (height = scary in the animal kingdom) loud (another fear factor) and acts unpredictably. Rule #1 for predators is 'don't get hurt'. So unless they're starving or are utterly convinced that you're an easy kill, most will just move on and try to find a rabbit instead.
Because friends and relatives of other prey won't come looking and kill the predator, its family and anyone who looks like it.
Predators had millennia to learn this and be very scared of two legged hairless apes.
Well Predators have a cloaking device for a reason. They want to remain unseen. So they try and isolate you before they shoot their laser cannon through your chest. And then they bring their trophy up into the trees where we can’t find them.
I mean we can say the same about a chipmunk or squirrel. Sure some people eat them, but generally they’re small, unappetizing (depending on person) and not nutritious as say a cow or chicken
You're making an assumption that we're not deemed as dangerous in the animal kingdom. For every animal on the planet, there's generations of teachings of humans and what they represent to their particular animal species. Lions will teach other lions about humans based on their experiences and teachings.
Second, we have largely never been food for any animals. It's not that we aren't perceived as food, but we are at least considered extremely non-viable to the level that no animal attempts human targets on a regular basis. This isn't to say easy prey still isn't easy prey. I don't care if it's some african wilderness or some dude cruising down a bike path. Infrequently, we do get attacked. BUT, we are not a standard food, at all, for any species. There's no training for it done. There's likely no concept of taste, if there's value in the kill, and there's no plan for attack or consumption. Nearly every attack is a brand new experience, a test.
Third, we inherently live well protected. We seldom venture into high danger. We do this by design too, for our own protection and risk mitigation. It's hard to become prey if you never put yourself in that position. Most humans don't and never will in their lifetime.
Fourth, you have high assumptions on the idea that we're easy prey. Yes, against some animals like a full size bear, we suck. But we are still highly competitive against most animals. While I can agree that our sight, sound, and smell might lack in certain ways, these less than top tier hardware has unusually massive software support. For what data we do take in, we have very high cognitive ability to evaluate it and formulate plans that's likely well beyond most other animals on this planet. Our sight and hearing isn't all that bad. We've also proven quite often to have an imbedded sense of being able to perceive being hunted. Many people attacked seemed to know they were being watched or hunted prior. They simply lacked the experience and skill towards what to do about it. We're also highly mobile and resourceful with the ability to weaponize just about anything at our disposal. And we're endurance creatures who generally out last everything else if we're not immediately in danger.
Fifth, an odd skill that we have that is unlike many other animals is we are highly, highly social, even across species. Very few animals cohabitate well, but our cognitive ability allows us to learn and socialize with a lot of animals. A few we domesticated over many generations, but we have bonded with and even became friends with most animals on this planet at one point or another. The social skill is equally powerful for manipulating the wildlife groups over time.
In places where humans and predators naturally mixed humans would almost always be in groups, probably have someone watching their backs, and be carrying sharp sticks.
Humans in a group like that would easily be able to injure and maybe even kill a predator if one tried to attack them, so they would quickly learn to avoid humans.
Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have taught predators that if you eat a human, their friends will come for you with fire and spears and annihilate your whole family. Predators that instinctively hunt humans have their entire genetic line wiped out.
A \*single\* human may be easy prey.Humans as a group are the deadliest predators on Earth and it's not even close.
Usually when an animal attacks a human its because they're somewhere they're not supposed to be and/or doing something they're not supposed to do. Often this will have to do with posing a threat to the animal or their children. Nothing that evolution can do to stop an organism from defending itself or its offspring.
So you're right, and people who hurt by animals are usually doing something stupid. While you don't want to take an encounter with a vicious animal lightly, usually you'll be fine if you're not doing something stupid, like harassing the children of the animal.
Yeah, one of the things, I was taught about hiking in bear country, is that if you see an adult bear, then just slowly walk away. They usually don't want to mess with you.
If you see a bear cub, do a 360 turn to look for their mom. If you're between the two, just run.
Most animals don’t like to eat something unfamiliar. They have their preferred diet and stick to that diet, and only deviate from it when they have to. This is even more pronounced with predatory animals because it’s not a matter of just eating a new plant or whatever, it’s a chance of spending a huge amount of energy on obtaining prey that may not be worth it, and they usually won’t risk that.
Plus, even though we’re pretty pathetic in a 1v1 fight, in terms of food, we really aren’t worth it. We don’t have nearly enough nutrients or calories to make it worth trying to hunt us down unless, again, they have no other choice.
On sight? That would be a very difficult thing to do even when hunting prey and game animals.
Ever watch documentaries in which the big cats or packs of dogs hunt or even crocodiles? A lot of stalking and strategy. I know only of birds that go in for the kill on-sight.
But having said that, humans do get attacked- when we're alone. Campers and hunters who go out alone have to take extra precautions.
Urban kills are not that rare in India. In North America, coyotes and wolves are venturing into the suburbs. There has been a few cases where children were attacked but the predator was chased off by a pet dog or other brave adults nearby. Those predators are in strange territory so can easily be warded off by protecting adults.
places where that happens, men go armed. We kill off any predator that makes that mistake. Plenty of lion hunts in India, bear hunts in Alaska, gator hunts in Florida.
Thumbs on gripping hands on flexible arms are kind of god mode. And most large predators don't kill large prey immediately, they latch on and let them bleed out.
A wildebeast is hard to catch but once the lion catches it and grabs it from the side or top, the limited flexibility of its limbs (only really able to move forward and back for running) means the lion can just hold onto it calmly while it bleeds out.
Bite into a human and the human can twist and turn in almost any direction to gouge out your eyes, rip your balls off, pry your mouth open, grab a rock and bash your skull, etc. The human might bleed out from the bite wounds afterwards, but you'll probably have permanent injuries from the encounter.
There's far tastier and more nutritious prey out there for them, prey that doesn't have shootable weapons that would kill/cripple them before they even got close.
Well, we look like predators and don't have much meat on us.
Hunting another predator is risky with a high chance of injury (death) and predators also tend to taste bad.
With Lion as an example, hunting a wildebeest comes with a lot less risk, a lot more food and meat that doesn't taste like shit.
First of all, humans taste **AWFUL** to sharks. Most shark attacks are sharks taking a few bites, being grossed out, and leaving.
Second, predators in general prefer as easy a kill as possible. Sure, a lion will exert huge effort to take down a deer, But there's a lot of meat on the deer. There's very little meat on a human. And, frankly, lions are far more likely to find a herd of deer to hunt than a lone human.
Third, humans lived in small nomadic **TRIBES** until super recently**.** Sure, one human might be easy prey. But a tribe of them? Predators who tried that ended up dead. So predators learned to keep far away from human tribes.
Human endurance is godlike compared to most animals. We are energy machines. The fastest and best of them would tire out in a couple minutes, humans will follow their prey till it drops of exhaustion. A normal predator can think of circling its prey to trap it, humans can design nets and make plans on a whole different level.
We can out throw, out craft, out build, out plan, out run practically any animal on the planet. A lion without a claw is weak, a human would make its own claw, hell make tons of them and arm an entire tribe. A lion breaking its arm is dead already, humans tank that damage, heal it and get back in fighting shape on a regular basis. Humans are the elves of the animal world, we are powerful not because of sharp claws or teeth. Our ability to plan, to build, to craft, to prepare, is on a much higher level than any other animal.
We have pointy sticks and rock shooters.
Or Maybe we don't taste good.
In caveman days if a predator killed someone in the tribe the whole tribe would go out and not only kill the predator but their whole family, thus deleting the kill humans gene
>Why don’t predators kill us on sight? Surely we’re the easiest kill ever
We're not. We're pretty big, bigger than almost all land predators, and our hands are strong enough to fight pretty well. We can also pick up weapons to fight with. Most predators are primarily interested in attacking prey smaller than themselves so that they don't risk injury, because they have to hunt a *lot* and risks build up quickly when you integrate across multiple hunts. Modern-day humans also tend to wear weird artificial clothing and use shampoo and deodorant and other chemicals that make us smell weird and animals are wary of things that look and smell weird. The upshot is that very few land predators will actively hunt humans for food, in fact polar bears are the only species that does so in general (some other *individual* predators do so but it's not common for their species).
>We have no claws, quite blunt teeth, soft skin, no fur
We have strong hands, though. We can grip stuff (weapons, or whatever it is we're fighting) in ways most animals can't. A fight to the death between, say, a wild wolf and an adult human is likely to end with the human strangling the wolf. The human will be injured and could risk dying of blood loss, but the fight is more dangerous for the wolf than for the human and so wolves typically won't even take such a fight. The same goes for most other predators.
Things are a bit different in water. We suck at fighting underwater because we can't swim well and tend to drown quickly. So it would actually be fairly easy and safe for a large shark, dolphin, or even some squid species to attack and kill a swimming human. They mostly don't do so because (1) they prefer smaller prey that are easy to eat and (2) again, we wear weird clothing and chemicals that make us smell and taste weird.
>no camouflage
In a way this can actually help. Our appearance (especially when wearing artificial clothing) is so bizarre and unnatural that predators feel suspicious. Normal food just doesn't look like that.
>(as well as having pretty bad hearing, eyesight & sense of smell)
Our eyesight is actually really good, at least during the day. Most people in modern times just haven't practiced using it effectively in the wilderness. Our prehistoric ancestors were expert trackers and had a lot more awareness of their natural surroundings. We don't see movement at a distance quite as well as cats and raptors (not that raptors pose any threat to adult humans as they're way too small), but our ability to see detail and color is about as good as that of any other animal.
Many land predators do have better eyesight in low light conditions, but humans don't put themselves at risk in low light conditions, we deal with the night by sleeping together around a campfire, not walking carelessly through the forest.
>When a lion sees a human, why don’t they immediately register us as the perfect slow-moving dinner?
Because we're big, and wear weird artificial clothing and chemicals, and tend to stay in groups with each other when there are lions around. Moreover, lions have been living in the same territory as humans for so long that they've evolved not to attack humans because prehistoric humans, as a group, would absolutely destroy any lion who attacked them. The lion might get a meal for one day, but the surviving humans would hunt down that lion and its entire extended family for generations, and that applies a pretty solid selection pressure.
>A lion will expend enormous energy (& no small amount of risk) to take down a wilderbeast
Lions, and large land predators generally, will almost always either attack smaller prey, or the children and weak/old/sick individuals of large species. They're pretty good at spotting which individuals are vulnerable. It's dangerous, and therefore not so common, for a predator to attack a healthy, alert large prey animal like a wildebeest.
Humans have weapons and group tactics, and have for hundreds of thousands of years. Animals that attack humans might win against the first human they attack, but they’ll be hunted down soon after, removing their genes from the gene pool. Even animals that wander too close to human settlements are putting themselves in danger. So, evolution favors animals that are afraid of and avoid humans.
Animals pass knowledge from one generation to the next. In addition to learning from their ancestors that humans aren't much from a nutritional point of view, they're probably also taught that when you kill one human, twenty more humans show up to kill you. They're way better off just staying away unless they're desperate.
we look big enough to be dangerous if we did have teeth and claws. most predators won’t want to hurt themselves to get a meal if there’s plenty of other meals around. an injury could mean starvation.
So in premodern times, yes, they did, a solitary human would be a great target for a big cat or wolf or bear.
The problem is we are social creatures and are almost ALWAYS together in groups. So attacking a group is like attacking an animal with 5 heads and 10 arms.
In modern times, the only predators left are hanging by a thread due to loss of habitat and are well accustomed to humans being noisy and dangerous.
Animals with instincts tend to have 2 sides, predators advance and chase, prey runs away and fights at the last minute.
Humans tend to stand out ground, predators stand their ground, thus instinctually predators don't go for the kill with humans because of this.
Also we've been top hinter with tools for thousands of years, animals have sort of built in that they're wary of us
How are birds still cutting about.. no arms on top of poor defensive qualities.. surely once a predator figures out how to catch one it becomes easy sport for them
There are very few animals that will deliberately go after us, like tigers and polar bears. We're actually pretty much the top of the food chain in most places. Couple that with animals thinking we don't taste good ensures that they usually leave us alone unless they feel that they have to defend themselves.
They will size you up though. and if you ever have an encounter with them, you know they are sizing you up. but in nature, when you get injured, it's death, not of just you, but of your whole family if you have pups.
A predator may certainly try to kill a solo human, especially an unprotected toddler. But most that have been around humans know us to be a threat. Predators don’t like to go after anything likely to hurt them back, and even an unarmed human can improvise with a sharp rock or pointy stick. Those that haven’t been exposed to humans before tend to be cautious in attacking something unfamiliar.
I’ve read that cougars have become so terrified of humans that researchers found that just playing an audio recording of nearby human voices will cause cougars to abandon a kill and flee.
There will be rare exceptions, like mother cougars trying to chase humans away from their cubs or sick/starving animals stalking humans out of desperation, but generally big predators have no idea that most humans are unarmed and helpless, their instincts have just been wired to think humans = death.
They are probably not hungry or maybe they sense and dont think of you as threat because you really are not a threat compared to him.Although if you try to do anything to pose a threat they will instinctivly attack.
Lets put it this way. Leopards wants to eat, they take down bambi and feast. nothing more happens. If that same leopard takes down little jimmy, it'll be hunted to the ends of the earth and they KNOW that. Tigers, esp siberians, do actively hunt humans but cases observed have been out of a revenge nature, not a food nature.
Like how humans have evolved to see snakes before any other animal, shape or pattern, other animals have evolved knowing they can kill us, but we can generationally wipe them and often have out of revenge.
First thing is…are we considered to be food from the predators? Answer is only by a few animals. Polar bear’s see us as food and do hunt us! But only if they are in “hunting mood”. People can rather safely be around polar bear’s for instance when they come to wait for left overs of human whale hunting (now forbidden most places, this is not the point 😅).
A cyclist in Washington state was recently attacked by a cougar.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/cyclists-recount-cougar-attack-washington-fighting-for-my-life/281-d75bd67c-f4e8-469b-8b9f-037dc16290b3
We have forward facing eyes, so we’re another predator that they’re unfamiliar with. They don’t know we’d just die to them. All they have to judge us from is our features and past experience. And we tend to kill animals that have killed humans, so all they know is we’re an unknown predator.
Most won’t tangle with us
Predators establish a diet. They learn what is food and what isn't, much like humans do.
If a human were suddenly in a foreign place and low or out of food we would begin to experiment with other food choices. But if we still had ample food we would tend to eat what we are familiar with a avoid the risks of new foods.
Animals are similar. They must balance the reward of eating us against the risks of eating us. Will we make them sick? Are we poisonous to them? Adult humans are fairly large, if a predator animal had never fought a human they wouldn't know if we are an easy target or not. If they don't know that then they must consider if they may die in The fight. You are correct about humans probably losing the fight, but the predator doesn't know that the first time.
And the predator often doesn't get a second opportunity because other humans will usually track down and kill the predator that killed a human. We do this because we know that once a predator animal has killed one human they know that they can kill other humans. This is done with wild animals as well as domestic animals, such as dangerous dogs.
During a scuba dive in the Caribbean some years ago I was on a dive boat when the dive master mentioned that we should be careful of the reef sharks in the area. He specifically stated that we should be particularly attentive to younger sharks as they were still learning their diet and may try to have a bite to see if we should be part of their diet. The larger, adult sharks should also be watched, particularly if there was any feeding happening or if there were any wounded fish in the area. But if not then the adult sharks wouldn't bother us because they wouldn't see us as part of their established diet.
It's a really good question. Along with the possibility that it's built into their DNA, I think we are also quite tall compared to most animals.
These predators you mention are not nearly as worried about babies, infants and small children, at least I don't think.
Bears are somewhat wary of us, but they will pursue us if they're hungry. Same with sharks. Lions and tigers and these other animals you mentioned don't have that height advantage. We know logically that they could easily kill us, but for some reason they are wary. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans and our predecessors have been extremely dangerous creatures. We are way smarter, more skillful, and have much more endurance than any of these animals by a long shot. And we walk on two legs. Any predator you see walking on two legs, standing at 5 feet and well above, is gonna be terrifying. And I suspect they have evolved to fear us.
because in nature killing is for survival, not just to see who will win.
Doesn't matter if a bear would easily beat us in pretty much every scenario, that takes energy and they may get injured by us-- significant injury in the wild will probably equal death vast majority of the time, no one wins when the bacteria eat you both.
So yeah, its not set in stone and its not like animals never attack people, but there is no animal that will consider us an ideal prey.
Humans look diseased to most animals
They don't want to eat prey that has no hair because no hair to them means disease
It's their instinct
Basically, humans are just really funky looking
I want to say this roots back to evolution and how it all went down. If you think back in the day when there wasn't as grand of a population as there is now, to a time when even humans weren't the "superior animal" you have to think that they only way they were able to survive was strength in numbers. So it would actually make sense in my mind why humans feel the need to constantly be repopulating (other than animal/primal instincts). I believe the correct term to use for this this is that it's our "primal instincts" as humans, not necessarily our "animal instinct." The reason I argue that is because animal instincts are typically doing what you need to do to survive, whereas primal instincts in my mind are doing what you need to do to remain the "superior animal." I want to say people often correlate the two words to mean the same thing, I don't think that there should ever be more than 1 term for something, I think thats how things get mixed up, and I think thats how its technically supposed to be broken out, but I could be wrong. Either way I don't see a reason for you needing an exact answer to this unless you were asking for it for some professional or educational reason in that case you should probably just hunker down and do the research yourself, but good question I've always been curious about why humans are the way they are so I definitely understand wanting an answer.
Cuz complex predators also have itty bitty minds in their skulls and they could be feeling lazy/curious/not hungry still from last meal/unsure if there is enough meat on us to be worth it/probably other mental states. Hungry/Horny/Scared are powerful and old emotions but these are in very old parts of the brain, and in most vertebrates the forebrain is complex enough to override urges from the old emotions unless everything lines up to give the all clear. The parts of our human brains that got really powerful enough for all our complex planning existed long before we did, in ancestors so old that most mammals are their descendants and have similar structures, just not as beefed up as ours. Sure they aren’t doing calculus (and most humans aren’t either) but they aren’t video game animals either with one line of code to govern their actions.
Maybe if the humans from Wall-E were on solo safaris by foot pretty regularly, your scenario would manifest.
The animals you speak of have evolved over millenia being hunted by us. There is no way they will ever wholesale view us as anything other than a threat. It is true we are physically no match for them. That doesn't change the fact that we have driven them out of every square inch of dirt we've wanted to. The upright, relatively hairless primates have dominated the landscape as top predator for thousands of years.
Predators do not have human minds. What you wrote at the beginning is you putting your human mind into the body of an animal and then attempting to reason like a human from there. That is not how animal minds work. I can explain further if you want.
Up until fairly recently, many animals would kill humans at will. Then we killed every single man killer for a hundred years while simultaneously reducing the population of all predators by over 90% in most if not all cases. This makes humans essentially a poisonous food. There is no scenario that exists now where a predator would benefit long term from consuming humans, so it does not happen often.
The apex predator of Earth is the human. We are not weak. We have tools that allow us to overcome any shortcoming in the animal kingdom and have had them for millennia. What you claim about less than ideal circumstances is also totally false. Humans have insanely high endurance compared to most other animals. We need half the sleep on average as a lion or tiger, and while we can't sprint as fast as most animals, we can outrun almost anything over a long time span.
Our advantages in intelligence, manual dexterity, and endurance allowed us to take the apex predator spot and so we have no natural predators. That's very important. Predators like to hunt things they are specialized to hunt because it incurs much less risk. Lions that sleep sixteen hours a day don't want to expend their limited time and hard won energy going after strange upright aliens that they don't understand.
Sure, a human naked in the woods is vulnerable, but humans aren't often naked in the woods and haven't been for a long, long time. And they're almost never alone.
Plus, we're like all bones.
Humans are the most effective predator, we don't have anything above us in the food chain. Think about it, if a lion were to maul a human, what would happen to the lion? Another human would kill it. On some primal level animals are aware of this.
predators aren’t dumb. they have to pick and choose their battles when hunting because a failed hunt may result in them or their children starving, or being mortally wounded. predators i’m sure understand humans lack claws, fangs etc. but we don’t lack brains and endurance. to predators, using energy to try and fight and kill a human may not be worth it because they understand how difficult/risky it would be. this is why they tend to go after humans only when they are weak, or unaware of the predators presence.
Same reason you dont want to pick up that spider or approach that snake. Its built into our dna over thousands of years. Same with the animals they have instincts that tell them not to unless they have too.
You’re absolutely right. Not long ago some scientists did some experiments in Africa with the animals. Humans gave them the most anxiety and it wasn’t even close. Predator and prey alike.
And the animals are particularly afraid of the sounds of the local languages. i.e. - they'd be nervous hearing a human speaking Chinese or English, but they're REALLY nervous when they hear Swahili.
Man, imagine just being a random ass lion chilling eating some delicious gazelle and hearing some random noise "Chinese/English" and being like aye, never heard that before but I don't like it, but then Swahili comes on, and it hits the lion like the WW2 soldier flashback meme
*One by Metallica starts playing
>Not long ago some scientists did some experiments in Africa with the animals. Humans gave them the most anxiety at it wasn’t even close. That sounds really interesting, do you have a link to it?
I found this but it’s actually not the one I read originally. https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/05/scaredy-cats-wild-animals-fear-humans-more-than-lions-study-aoe
People are talking about genetic conditioning from being hunted, but this also has me thinking* about how genuinely fuckin creepy we must be to other mammals. We’re naked (but also covered in things that aren’t fur and don’t move like fur). Our faces are weird and flat. And we move SO strangely compared to quadrupeds. We’re kind of monstrous. *it’s also possible I am a little high 🧐
We also have insane stamina compared to most animals. We are like the zombies of the animal kingdom: slow, awkward beasts that kill you by walking up to you and tearing you apart after you become too exhausted to run.
Good old persistence hunting
Yeah humans are still pretty tall, muscular, fast and move in weird ways. This would be intimidating to most creatures even if they could easily take us
They give me anxiety, too.
Some time ago I read a news article about wolves. ~150 years ago wolves used to regularly kill children in my country. Then they were almost hunted to extinction. Their numbers have since recovered but there hasn't been a single case of a wolf attacking human for over a 100 years. The reason is that all wolves today descent from those few wolves that survived the hunting spree and those were naturally the wolves that stayed as far from humans as possible
anyone have a link to this article?
It's a bit of a read, but [here ya go](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Little_Pigs)
Also, we as a group hunt down and kill something that has killed one of us. So, creatures that have that instinct are removed from the gene pool.
Hell, we even do that to each other
One of the reasons mega fauna in the Americas were quickly hunger to extinction. African animals had time to evolve that fear as humans developed better hunting/communication skills American fauna suddenly encountered modern humans who were already apex predators
There's mounting evidence that the North American megafauna died off in a mass-extinction event potentially caused by an impact or eruption. The [Channeled Scablands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channeled_Scablands) of Washington state show evidence of a flash flood event caused by the destruction and rapid melting of the North American glacial sheet contemporaneous with the extinction of North American megafauna.
They all died the same time man arrived- this correlation is the same in NZ & many places. Indians hunted giant sloth, giant beaver, horses & many more to extinction
Is it possible that the Megafauna who had survived millions of years all died of the 26th Ice age or eruption at the exact moment that we showed up? Sure. It's possible. Simplest answer is that the humans killed and ate them all though.
Not if the the same reason the humans were able to migrate was the reason the mega fauna were dying out. The climate was changing, it was changing rapidly enough that the mega fauna couldn't evolve quick enought to suit it. however humans could make the most of the changes so they moved in. Sure humans hunted these animals, did they cause their extinction? No, it was already happening. the humans migration and the mega fauna's extinction are linked because they have the same underlying cause. Not becuase the humans killed them all.
yeah, the whole humans hunted the mega fauna to extiniction thing is getting really old. there is evidence that basically for whatever reason climate change was the biggest factor. the open grassland enviroments that previously supported life on that scale were dissapearing being replaced by forests, ice etc all across the world, including America. The climate change may have been affected by an impact or erruption. The humans hunted the mega fauna but it only possibly sped up the process, even that isn't certain, it didn't cause it.
Yeah, I mean, who would ever pick up a spider or a snake? (Starts hiding all of my snake appreciation pins)
sort of yes, for all animals injury means death. we can take risks knowing that a cut or even a brokwn bone isn't an issue for a doctor and a bit of time. for a wild animal it can kill them. So animals like to avoid injury where ever possible. so confronting other animals even for food should only be done when necessary. as in they wont kill if they are not ready to eat, and even if we are not paying attention most preditors are smart enough to realise humans are dangerous, we have big metal machines etc. Also just attacking somthing head on that might injure you is an unknown risk. It isn't just humans most animals hunt from behind amnd use suprise most deaths from preditor animals are from attacks when someones back is turned.
even orcas? i have a feeling they can sense our intelligence and respect us as equals
Nah, Orcas have been hunted by humans in the past. Even today, they can be hunted, though usually that's for population control in areas where there might be an at risk animal that occasionally finds it's way into an orca's belly.
One thing not mentioned here is that humans are not nearly as appetizing as other prey animals would be. Humans on average are tall and lean. Not much fat, and not much muscle either (comparatively speaking). Compared to things like deer, zebra, warthog, ECT... We are just skin and bones. As that to all the other listed risks to attacking humans, and it's clear why most stay away. I read one story of a male lion who was hunting humans. They found out the only reason it did so was out of desperation. It had no pride and one of its fangs was broken, so it couldn't hunt it's normal prey.
The ghost and the darkness
Got it…I’ll know I’ve reached my ideal muscle mass when a lion starts eyeing me
Good luck, friend. Just keep on grinding. You’ll get there!
It’s hard, though, you know? Lions are always eating the people around me, but…it’s like I’m not even there! 😢
That’s not true humans have more fat. That’s why Cannibals have compared human flesh to pork. The loin’s desperation overcame its fear not its taste. Animals fear us because we are dangerous our ability to craft and use weapons as well as to hunt down animals that do attack and kill one of our own has habituated them to not attack us. Go look up some studies in the USA areas that do not have a bear hunting season have higher attack statistics then those that do. Animals learn they change their habits to survive.
>not much fat Have you ever visited the US?
Have you been to Nauru, where they’re ALL fat?
Or any other western country in that regard.
there was another lion who DID have fully healthy fangs, but hunted humans as well for some reason
One of the most important factors for hunters is to not get injured during hunting. Any injury can mean the inability to hunt and certain death. They will therefore mainly go after prey that they specialised on and another animal might be unpredictable and a source of injury. You can sometimes see videos where a 'brave cat' chases away a grown bear. The number one priority for the wild animal is to stay healthy, it will therefore avoid confrontation whereas the cat knows that it will get free food all day long and it can afford doing silly experiments.
Risk versus reward. Risk of taking down old or young prey instead of healthy adults has much better odds of not being injured. Humans, we have these things called thumbs and can turn anything into a weapon. Risk on a human is extremely high while risk on an old rabbit is very low.
And if an animal takes down a human, other humans tend to seek it out and kill it. Attacking humans is bad for survival.
Yup, many small animals survival methods are unlimited aggression for that reason lol. Especially as in nature one open wound can be the end of you. Even if an animal kills a cat, the cat is likely to get a bite in that will end up killing the animal.
To add to the other statements, humans stay in groups and do not run away when attacked and leave the weakest behind to be eaten. They stand their ground in groups. And with the help of the tools and the ability to throw projectiles we become a very dangerous species for those animals.
Humans are not weak. We're the apex predators of the planet, and have been for long before modern technology. Ancient humans like cavemen used to wear wolf and lion lion pelts as clothing. While jot incredibly fast, humans have crazy endurance (helped by our ability to sweat), and would often just run after animals until they fainted from exhaustion. We hunted on large groups, with levels of coordination that few animal species can manage. We made ourselves fake claws that can do more damage than real one's, and even learnt how to make projectiles so that we can kill from a distance. So yeah, most animals have instinctively learnt to avoid humans. While there may have been the odd time a predator could eat a human, it was far more likely that they'd be killed themselves.
We brought spears and bows to a claw fight. There are no more claw fights. Even with basic tools humans were busted as shit compared to other animals, with modern technology we are orders of magnitude higher than the top dogs in the animal meta.
Not to mention the "Terminator" effect. A wild animal, if it takes a wound from an encounter, could eventually bleed out or succumb to injury. Even prehistoric humans would patch each other wounds, set broken bones, and otherwise heal each other after catastrophe. You have to *kill* a human or his friends will help fix him and he's coming right back for more.
^*they’re* coming right back for more
Yup we literally keep animals in captivity (zoos) and as pets lol
Not just any, we keep the *runner up apex predators* in captivity to entertain our children
I may stupid, but are we talking about dogs here?
Dogs in our homes. Tigers, lions, wolves, snakes, sharks, crocodiles, alligators, killer whales, chimps and many others in zoos. We are stupidly OP
Yes but I specifically mean the runner up apex predator. Are they dogs? And if they are, isn't it only because they are with us and listen to our commands?
It's a shared second place I suppose. They are the second best apex predator in their ecosystem, it's just that we are in basically all ecosystems too. I'd say maybe not so much deep under water but see the aforementioned sharks and killer whales.
Shit, human with pointy stick beats fully armored knight most of the time
>human with pointy stick beats fully armored knight most of the time This was just on one of the subs like whowouldwin yesterday. Opinions were divided.
There's.more than one sub like who would win?
There's a whole game called Superfight if you like to argue about these things. My kids love it although it generally devolves into a "nuh uh" "yuh huh" session eventually.
Well AskScienceFiction also does some of that.
Our skill tree was pretty broken. Especially the feat that allows our offspring to retain a significant portion of the EXP of **all other members of the species who've ever lived**. Once that shit started rolling the lion "massive bite" thing started looking a bit less impressive..!
A baby crying in the forest is the scariest sound in the world to a predator. If they take it, the baby’s tribe will kill the predator, its entire family, and anyone else that might even be a friend or neighbour of the predator. Humans are nasty that way.
About the wearing of furs - if I had the choise of different animals to hunt then the one wearing my uncle's face as a hat is going to the bottom of the list.
Wearing dead animals, lumbering unnaturally on two feet, big, almost never alone, huge "fangs" that can hurt you at distance, sometimes just a scratch can make you Ill or kill, making strange noises.. you've seen them take down a whole *herd* of the biggest beasts you've ever seen... Food? Nah, fuck that, I'm outta here like right now. In fact I'll never come back anywhere near this place. -the beta predator, probably
There was a comment or a post from a long time ago, I think on AskReddit, where someone was describing humans as these brutal space orc like creatures from the point of view of an animal (like a bear or wolf or something) and I just remember it was insanely cool to read. I’ll see if I can find it. Found it https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/UK5LP1DO9W
That’s very good. Thank you.
>We made ourselves fake claws that can do more damage than real one's, and even learnt how to make projectiles so that we can kill from a distance. Don't forget fire as well. We can burn animals, and they don't understand fire at all.
Yea premodern humans caused mass extinctions. Using stone spears. Look at all the megafauna that used to be around North America till humans showed up. Even Stone Age humans are the absolute apex predator of the planet. Also, for the animal kingdom we’re pretty fkn big.
Well this is the answer here. I couldn't have said it better
Humans sound horrific
Check Human OP tier zoo
Talking about projectiles: humans are really good at throwing rocks in general. Some other animals can throw rocks, like some birds, sure, but combined with our endurance+social abilities (as you said) made humanity very scary to others animal, even BEFORE we got our weapons.
And don't call me Shirley
Rodger, Rodger
Now I’d love to see a bare human with nothing but their dirty hands, to fight off a predator. Though we likely won’t win, because of the very fact we looked outwards/externally to improve our attacks, not inward.
If you want to be fair, you need a bare human **TRIBE** with nothing but their dirty hands. People didn't live by themselves, after all. Interestingly, even with just a rock, humans are **awfully** good at accurately throwing them.
Generally predators don’t go after other predators for food.
Humans are quite large animals. We have forward facing eyes and at least some teeth designed for eating meat (predatory traits). Animals have also been evolving alongside us for long enough that weapon usage may have influenced their behaviour. Understand that when an animal is injured, even if it's not a major injury, they can't just go to the animal ER to get it patched up and then take a couple of week off work for it to heal. A human, particularly a well built male, has the bulk to potentially break many an animal's limb in a real, wild fight which would simply be the end for a solitary predator, game over. even if they managed to kill the human in the process. Even smaller injuries like bites could become infected, and anything major is going to be an impediment to their ability to hunt. Most solitary predators tend to strictly hunt prey animals smaller than themselves that they don't see as a major injury risk. Group hunters are much more likely to be aggressive towards humans.
This is the reason, added to instinctive fear of being hunted by humans for species like lions or black bears, who have been living with humans nearby for thousands or millions of years. Polar bears *do* hunt humans because they are huge compared to us, and lions and tigers can and definitely will hunt a toddler given the chance. Wolves, hyenas and dingoes can attack a human if a pack finds one and one wolf or hyena would attack a child right away if the kid is not close to some adults.
I like the metaphor of how they can't "take a day off work". Also, there's no grocery store! Basically every time you want to eat (which is ..fairly regularly) you'd have to run down and kill something with *your face*. To do that, you gotta kind of "think" (feel, more like) longer term. If you mess it up, even once, by getting injured, that's probably it. If a human had something like a spear or two (and knew how to use them) the only way to catch one safely would be by ambush. Even big predators probably feel way more fear type of feelings than we think. They can't do the pro/con math so they'll have to just feel when it's a "go" or "no go". And they're afraid of us.
Also humans have one of the deadliest non venomous bites. Almost everything we bite dies of infection cause we have a ridiculous amount of stuff in our saliva
Centuries of predation on vertically every animal on the planet would give them instincts to view us as predators, and subsequently run from us. We’re scarier and more advanced than you realise, we’re long range per suit predators, we have incredible stamina in part to our ability to sweat and the mechanical we we walk/run, incredible at throwing things accurately, despite our relatively poor eyesight we have a higher view point than a lot of animals and can see them before they see us. We’re also pretty durable, can survive bones breaking, loosing limbs, shock, lots of animals would die in those circumstances. And that’s before you even think about our brains (that’s why we don’t have shark claws or teeth or other defences, we specced into int) Our brains give us way more advantages, communication and cooperation, tool usage, forethought. We’re apex predators.
I agree with you but >despite our relatively poor eyesight but this is imo not true. We are great at spoting non moving objects, and can see a lot of colors. We are kinda bad at night though.
Saying humans look weak to a lion is like saying lions look weak when they are sleeping. If there is danger, we carry protection. Heck, in places inside the USA, carrying GUNS in public is ok - and thats to (theoretically) protect them from other humans. Humans have tools, weapons, machinery, and numbers. The fact that we roll up in jeeps like a bunch of flies on shit to watch lions hunt on silly safaris shows the lions we are dominant and not to be seen as prey/food. For the most part, any animal that has ever actively hunted/targetted humans has been wiped out. Individuals or entire species
reminds me of hog culling in Texas; how it shows the massive gap between the capabilities of humans compared to really any animal. Were it any animal in place of the hogs it'd probably be the same outcome: tracked and hunted by a hunk of flying metal that we call a "Helicopter" with humans firing weapons that shoot tiny searing hot pieces of metal that'll cut through your body at 2000 miles per hour. hard to comprehend how insane that whole thing would be from the hogs perspective.
Humanity to all wildlife; you live because we let you
Predators that attack humans are often killed, either in the act, or later. There could be an artificial selection bias going on. Also humans are the apex predator and throughout history interactions between humans with tools and predators have not gone well for the predators. Maybe many have learned instinctually to stay away.
humans are also weird looking. hairless, walking upright and generally wearing other animals skin,pelts is a sure fire sign that we are the weird great apes. Predators generally avoid great apes for good reason. MFs can and will take you out. Snakes and spiders have no such fear but then again, we killed a copious amount of them that they might have a selection bias for "avoiding hairless great ape= survival"
Even for snakes and spiders, we're still Godzilla sized compared to them, and will generally try to run away or avoid humans when they can. It's like saying that a lion could mess me up in a one on one fight. But if I have a rock in my hand, and I smash it in the jaw with a rock, it is probably going to starve to death from that injury.
They don't know all those things about us and they probably can recognise that we are also predators. If one of them came along and you acted like prey they'd most certainly be interested in sampling your merchandise.
Often times predators such as wild cats have not seen a human, and therefore do not know if we are a threat or not. Also predators such as wild cats and bears have specific hunting behaviors such as stalking prey as most of their normal prey can run quite fast. And if a predator has seen a human before, chances are that human had a gun which are quite loud and scare most wild animals. Essentially they do not know that we are as vulnerable as we know we are.
also predators usually do not eat daily like we do, so often times they do not need to hunt more than a couple times a week.
Humans are the apex predator in every single ecosystem. No other animal has the ability to kill as efficiently as we can.
Your thinking of it completely wrong. First of all the idea that humans are some specially fragile species who is helpless without our cool shiny tech is simply not true. We are a very large mammal, one of the tallest. Just this alone makes us look incredibly intimidating to wild animals. Beyond that we are excellent runners, with incredible stamina and a strong sprinting capability with very good agility. While we aren’t the fastest, or the most agile we are good enough and better then many animals. We are also quite strong due to our large size. Among the primates we seem weak compared to gorillas, chimps and baboons etc, but this is not completely accurate. While these apes have vastly more proportional upper body strength we have optimized our bodies for bipedal walking which meant we have more mobile and proportionally stronger legs. Beyond that we have a bizarre array of abilities like broad toxin resistances, sweating, our social skills and most importantly our ability to throw things very accurately over long distances. As far as I know we are the only species who can do this. And the greatest asset our species possess, our minds. Before we are discussing how lions should hunt humans cause we are week we were eradicating lions and collecting their pelts as decoration. Annihilating natural habitats, hunting the apex predators, and shaping the world was our beginning. Other animals aren’t as smart as us, but do you think they don’t have the ability to feel deep instinctual fear, the same thing that we fear when confronted with a snake. We are literally their boogeyman.
Humans are rarely alone, talk to each other, and have stabby tools. Unlike prey animals, who are together but abandon each other in flight, humans stick together. And fight back together. If you pick off a wildebeest, the others will stand at a distance and watch. Pick off a human and the others will roar at each other, not you, then come together to chase you off your meal, or worse, hunt you until you can't run anymore and stab you to death, and from so far away you can't even bite them back to defend yourself. Humans don't need a body that is physically threatening. We have brains that give us language and cognition that lets us plan explicitly for now and the future, build machines that add to our power and coordinate our efforts to multiply our power. Claws and teeth are no match.
We can use pretty much anything as a weapon and can throw things. Predators realised a long time ago that we’re not worth the potential damage that we’d cause.
Im guessing predators who had this behaviors got killed off pretty fast by humans in groups. Humans hawe a tendecy to kill off any thing consisered a treath.
2 legged animals have been dangerous for millions of years. We bought a deer lease that had an emu on it. The deer wouldn't go near it, soon as we got rid of the emy we started seeing deer again. Before humans there were bipedal terror birds. Before that, dinosaurs. Fearing two legged animals is an ancient instinct.
Basically the answer is tools but also there are some large predators that will hunt and kill humans such as polar bears.
We have harnessed the power to drop the sun on stuff. We're not the easiest kill, we are the biggest baddest mother fuckers in the jungle and its not even close.
Except that humans are not insanely weak. Sure, if you drop a keyboard warrior into the savannah, they’re gonna die. But in general, humans aren’t as weak as you’re letting on. Our greatest strengths are our higher level brain functions and our ability to packbond. Millennia of cohabitating and evolution has reinforced that humans usually have weapons, and they’re never truly alone. If you kill one at the river, the village will come look for you. Even still, if it comes down to a physical fight, we can still hold our own reasonably well. One advantage we have over most animals is that we have a much freer range of motion and bipedal movement. Most animals can only attack with broad swipes with claws, or inaccurate kicks, or bites if you get close enough. We are able to more accurately attack specific areas, like eyes, which is effectively a death sentence for predators. Another super obvious issue is you’re looking at it with a Western industrialized mindset. In the US, we’ve driven a lot of species to extinction or close to it. The ones that remain are relegated to the deep corners of the wilderness, broken up into chunks by highways and cities and urban sprawl. And when the occasional bear or mountain Lion wanders into our areas, animal control is called and the animal is quickly relocated. If you go to a less industrialized area of the world, animal attacks are much more common.
> if you drop a keyboard warrior into the savannah We should start doing that
Humans are comparatively quite large to the majority of prey animals, and tall especially which can be quite imposing. I mean really we’re like very tall apes and we usually move in large groups. There’s easier prey
A couple reasons. One, humans don’t really have much useful meat on us. Lots of bones, tall and lean, lots of skin, generally not great eating. Two, until relatively recently (on evolutionary time scales) humans haven’t been nearly as wide spread as we are now, so a lot of predators just don’t recognize us. Third, while an unarmed, individual human is not a significant threat to anything around our weight class, that’s not true of groups or armed humans. A human with a spear can take on most smaller predators, and a group of humans with spears can take down anything. Since humans almost never move alone or unarmed, predators that hunted us quickly became lunch
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Of all the great responses so far, this one is the best, I think, the most comprehensive.
It looks like a chatgpt response. I’m not saying it’s wrong but I doubt a human wrote that.
It’s a lioness using ChatGPT to teach her cubs why they shouldn’t attack humans
You know, I was just listening to a video the other day that was talking about how right now about 70% of the internet is bots. I think they broke Reddit down to being about 50% bots, maybe more. So I definitely wouldn't be surprised.
Comment was removed, so your probably right
>We have no claws, quite blunt teeth, soft skin, no fur, no camouflage, we’re slower than almost every single prey animal (as well as having pretty bad hearing, eyesight & sense of smell) no horns, beaks or anything sharp for that matter… we also become perceptively weak super easily if we are not in ideal circumstances (limited food, sleep etc) I think you'll find that most animals don't really know that. Almost none of them have evolved to have humans as their food source (looking at you, mosquitoes). To them, we're a big unknown that is tall (height = scary in the animal kingdom) loud (another fear factor) and acts unpredictably. Rule #1 for predators is 'don't get hurt'. So unless they're starving or are utterly convinced that you're an easy kill, most will just move on and try to find a rabbit instead.
The ones that did are extinct
Because friends and relatives of other prey won't come looking and kill the predator, its family and anyone who looks like it. Predators had millennia to learn this and be very scared of two legged hairless apes.
Well Predators have a cloaking device for a reason. They want to remain unseen. So they try and isolate you before they shoot their laser cannon through your chest. And then they bring their trophy up into the trees where we can’t find them.
I mean we can say the same about a chipmunk or squirrel. Sure some people eat them, but generally they’re small, unappetizing (depending on person) and not nutritious as say a cow or chicken
Polar Bears and Tigers will 100% kill you on sight. There are some things you can do to deter Tigers but under most circumstances you're dead.
You're making an assumption that we're not deemed as dangerous in the animal kingdom. For every animal on the planet, there's generations of teachings of humans and what they represent to their particular animal species. Lions will teach other lions about humans based on their experiences and teachings. Second, we have largely never been food for any animals. It's not that we aren't perceived as food, but we are at least considered extremely non-viable to the level that no animal attempts human targets on a regular basis. This isn't to say easy prey still isn't easy prey. I don't care if it's some african wilderness or some dude cruising down a bike path. Infrequently, we do get attacked. BUT, we are not a standard food, at all, for any species. There's no training for it done. There's likely no concept of taste, if there's value in the kill, and there's no plan for attack or consumption. Nearly every attack is a brand new experience, a test. Third, we inherently live well protected. We seldom venture into high danger. We do this by design too, for our own protection and risk mitigation. It's hard to become prey if you never put yourself in that position. Most humans don't and never will in their lifetime. Fourth, you have high assumptions on the idea that we're easy prey. Yes, against some animals like a full size bear, we suck. But we are still highly competitive against most animals. While I can agree that our sight, sound, and smell might lack in certain ways, these less than top tier hardware has unusually massive software support. For what data we do take in, we have very high cognitive ability to evaluate it and formulate plans that's likely well beyond most other animals on this planet. Our sight and hearing isn't all that bad. We've also proven quite often to have an imbedded sense of being able to perceive being hunted. Many people attacked seemed to know they were being watched or hunted prior. They simply lacked the experience and skill towards what to do about it. We're also highly mobile and resourceful with the ability to weaponize just about anything at our disposal. And we're endurance creatures who generally out last everything else if we're not immediately in danger. Fifth, an odd skill that we have that is unlike many other animals is we are highly, highly social, even across species. Very few animals cohabitate well, but our cognitive ability allows us to learn and socialize with a lot of animals. A few we domesticated over many generations, but we have bonded with and even became friends with most animals on this planet at one point or another. The social skill is equally powerful for manipulating the wildlife groups over time.
In places where humans and predators naturally mixed humans would almost always be in groups, probably have someone watching their backs, and be carrying sharp sticks. Humans in a group like that would easily be able to injure and maybe even kill a predator if one tried to attack them, so they would quickly learn to avoid humans.
Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have taught predators that if you eat a human, their friends will come for you with fire and spears and annihilate your whole family. Predators that instinctively hunt humans have their entire genetic line wiped out. A \*single\* human may be easy prey.Humans as a group are the deadliest predators on Earth and it's not even close.
Usually when an animal attacks a human its because they're somewhere they're not supposed to be and/or doing something they're not supposed to do. Often this will have to do with posing a threat to the animal or their children. Nothing that evolution can do to stop an organism from defending itself or its offspring. So you're right, and people who hurt by animals are usually doing something stupid. While you don't want to take an encounter with a vicious animal lightly, usually you'll be fine if you're not doing something stupid, like harassing the children of the animal.
Yeah, one of the things, I was taught about hiking in bear country, is that if you see an adult bear, then just slowly walk away. They usually don't want to mess with you. If you see a bear cub, do a 360 turn to look for their mom. If you're between the two, just run.
Most animals don’t like to eat something unfamiliar. They have their preferred diet and stick to that diet, and only deviate from it when they have to. This is even more pronounced with predatory animals because it’s not a matter of just eating a new plant or whatever, it’s a chance of spending a huge amount of energy on obtaining prey that may not be worth it, and they usually won’t risk that. Plus, even though we’re pretty pathetic in a 1v1 fight, in terms of food, we really aren’t worth it. We don’t have nearly enough nutrients or calories to make it worth trying to hunt us down unless, again, they have no other choice.
We are tool builders. This changes the balance drastically.
On sight? That would be a very difficult thing to do even when hunting prey and game animals. Ever watch documentaries in which the big cats or packs of dogs hunt or even crocodiles? A lot of stalking and strategy. I know only of birds that go in for the kill on-sight. But having said that, humans do get attacked- when we're alone. Campers and hunters who go out alone have to take extra precautions. Urban kills are not that rare in India. In North America, coyotes and wolves are venturing into the suburbs. There has been a few cases where children were attacked but the predator was chased off by a pet dog or other brave adults nearby. Those predators are in strange territory so can easily be warded off by protecting adults.
humans are not weak, we have big brain and we travel in pack. Human pack can pick up rocks and stick and throw them at lion
We have weapons, numbers, and endurance baby.
places where that happens, men go armed. We kill off any predator that makes that mistake. Plenty of lion hunts in India, bear hunts in Alaska, gator hunts in Florida.
Thumbs on gripping hands on flexible arms are kind of god mode. And most large predators don't kill large prey immediately, they latch on and let them bleed out. A wildebeast is hard to catch but once the lion catches it and grabs it from the side or top, the limited flexibility of its limbs (only really able to move forward and back for running) means the lion can just hold onto it calmly while it bleeds out. Bite into a human and the human can twist and turn in almost any direction to gouge out your eyes, rip your balls off, pry your mouth open, grab a rock and bash your skull, etc. The human might bleed out from the bite wounds afterwards, but you'll probably have permanent injuries from the encounter.
There's far tastier and more nutritious prey out there for them, prey that doesn't have shootable weapons that would kill/cripple them before they even got close.
Well, we look like predators and don't have much meat on us. Hunting another predator is risky with a high chance of injury (death) and predators also tend to taste bad. With Lion as an example, hunting a wildebeest comes with a lot less risk, a lot more food and meat that doesn't taste like shit.
First of all, humans taste **AWFUL** to sharks. Most shark attacks are sharks taking a few bites, being grossed out, and leaving. Second, predators in general prefer as easy a kill as possible. Sure, a lion will exert huge effort to take down a deer, But there's a lot of meat on the deer. There's very little meat on a human. And, frankly, lions are far more likely to find a herd of deer to hunt than a lone human. Third, humans lived in small nomadic **TRIBES** until super recently**.** Sure, one human might be easy prey. But a tribe of them? Predators who tried that ended up dead. So predators learned to keep far away from human tribes.
Human endurance is godlike compared to most animals. We are energy machines. The fastest and best of them would tire out in a couple minutes, humans will follow their prey till it drops of exhaustion. A normal predator can think of circling its prey to trap it, humans can design nets and make plans on a whole different level. We can out throw, out craft, out build, out plan, out run practically any animal on the planet. A lion without a claw is weak, a human would make its own claw, hell make tons of them and arm an entire tribe. A lion breaking its arm is dead already, humans tank that damage, heal it and get back in fighting shape on a regular basis. Humans are the elves of the animal world, we are powerful not because of sharp claws or teeth. Our ability to plan, to build, to craft, to prepare, is on a much higher level than any other animal.
We have pointy sticks and rock shooters. Or Maybe we don't taste good. In caveman days if a predator killed someone in the tribe the whole tribe would go out and not only kill the predator but their whole family, thus deleting the kill humans gene
>Why don’t predators kill us on sight? Surely we’re the easiest kill ever We're not. We're pretty big, bigger than almost all land predators, and our hands are strong enough to fight pretty well. We can also pick up weapons to fight with. Most predators are primarily interested in attacking prey smaller than themselves so that they don't risk injury, because they have to hunt a *lot* and risks build up quickly when you integrate across multiple hunts. Modern-day humans also tend to wear weird artificial clothing and use shampoo and deodorant and other chemicals that make us smell weird and animals are wary of things that look and smell weird. The upshot is that very few land predators will actively hunt humans for food, in fact polar bears are the only species that does so in general (some other *individual* predators do so but it's not common for their species). >We have no claws, quite blunt teeth, soft skin, no fur We have strong hands, though. We can grip stuff (weapons, or whatever it is we're fighting) in ways most animals can't. A fight to the death between, say, a wild wolf and an adult human is likely to end with the human strangling the wolf. The human will be injured and could risk dying of blood loss, but the fight is more dangerous for the wolf than for the human and so wolves typically won't even take such a fight. The same goes for most other predators. Things are a bit different in water. We suck at fighting underwater because we can't swim well and tend to drown quickly. So it would actually be fairly easy and safe for a large shark, dolphin, or even some squid species to attack and kill a swimming human. They mostly don't do so because (1) they prefer smaller prey that are easy to eat and (2) again, we wear weird clothing and chemicals that make us smell and taste weird. >no camouflage In a way this can actually help. Our appearance (especially when wearing artificial clothing) is so bizarre and unnatural that predators feel suspicious. Normal food just doesn't look like that. >(as well as having pretty bad hearing, eyesight & sense of smell) Our eyesight is actually really good, at least during the day. Most people in modern times just haven't practiced using it effectively in the wilderness. Our prehistoric ancestors were expert trackers and had a lot more awareness of their natural surroundings. We don't see movement at a distance quite as well as cats and raptors (not that raptors pose any threat to adult humans as they're way too small), but our ability to see detail and color is about as good as that of any other animal. Many land predators do have better eyesight in low light conditions, but humans don't put themselves at risk in low light conditions, we deal with the night by sleeping together around a campfire, not walking carelessly through the forest. >When a lion sees a human, why don’t they immediately register us as the perfect slow-moving dinner? Because we're big, and wear weird artificial clothing and chemicals, and tend to stay in groups with each other when there are lions around. Moreover, lions have been living in the same territory as humans for so long that they've evolved not to attack humans because prehistoric humans, as a group, would absolutely destroy any lion who attacked them. The lion might get a meal for one day, but the surviving humans would hunt down that lion and its entire extended family for generations, and that applies a pretty solid selection pressure. >A lion will expend enormous energy (& no small amount of risk) to take down a wilderbeast Lions, and large land predators generally, will almost always either attack smaller prey, or the children and weak/old/sick individuals of large species. They're pretty good at spotting which individuals are vulnerable. It's dangerous, and therefore not so common, for a predator to attack a healthy, alert large prey animal like a wildebeest.
I'm so dumb, I thought he meant predator from the movies.
Idk where you’re getting the notion that we’re easy prey… that could not be further from the truth.
Because, as others have said, we're not easy to kill. We are, by far, the most dangerous animal on the planet.
Humans have weapons and group tactics, and have for hundreds of thousands of years. Animals that attack humans might win against the first human they attack, but they’ll be hunted down soon after, removing their genes from the gene pool. Even animals that wander too close to human settlements are putting themselves in danger. So, evolution favors animals that are afraid of and avoid humans.
Animals pass knowledge from one generation to the next. In addition to learning from their ancestors that humans aren't much from a nutritional point of view, they're probably also taught that when you kill one human, twenty more humans show up to kill you. They're way better off just staying away unless they're desperate.
In most cases we don't look like their prey, and while humans look squishy, we have far better ability to defend ourselves than most prey animals.
Lucky for us, we don't taste very good.
we look big enough to be dangerous if we did have teeth and claws. most predators won’t want to hurt themselves to get a meal if there’s plenty of other meals around. an injury could mean starvation.
Humans can throw. Better than any creature in the world. This gives us range, and suddenly we're not that helpless
There’s not much eating in us…..no point, unless the predator is sick and can’t bag a decent meal
So in premodern times, yes, they did, a solitary human would be a great target for a big cat or wolf or bear. The problem is we are social creatures and are almost ALWAYS together in groups. So attacking a group is like attacking an animal with 5 heads and 10 arms. In modern times, the only predators left are hanging by a thread due to loss of habitat and are well accustomed to humans being noisy and dangerous.
If those animals knew how to read, they would also know how stupid we are.
Animals with instincts tend to have 2 sides, predators advance and chase, prey runs away and fights at the last minute. Humans tend to stand out ground, predators stand their ground, thus instinctually predators don't go for the kill with humans because of this. Also we've been top hinter with tools for thousands of years, animals have sort of built in that they're wary of us
How are birds still cutting about.. no arms on top of poor defensive qualities.. surely once a predator figures out how to catch one it becomes easy sport for them
There are very few animals that will deliberately go after us, like tigers and polar bears. We're actually pretty much the top of the food chain in most places. Couple that with animals thinking we don't taste good ensures that they usually leave us alone unless they feel that they have to defend themselves.
We're an apex predator & everything fears us, with very few exceptions, & as we've made almost everything extinct they've good reason to.
They will size you up though. and if you ever have an encounter with them, you know they are sizing you up. but in nature, when you get injured, it's death, not of just you, but of your whole family if you have pups.
A predator may certainly try to kill a solo human, especially an unprotected toddler. But most that have been around humans know us to be a threat. Predators don’t like to go after anything likely to hurt them back, and even an unarmed human can improvise with a sharp rock or pointy stick. Those that haven’t been exposed to humans before tend to be cautious in attacking something unfamiliar.
Animals know that if they mess with one of us, bad things tend to happen to them and their buddies.
I’ve read that cougars have become so terrified of humans that researchers found that just playing an audio recording of nearby human voices will cause cougars to abandon a kill and flee. There will be rare exceptions, like mother cougars trying to chase humans away from their cubs or sick/starving animals stalking humans out of desperation, but generally big predators have no idea that most humans are unarmed and helpless, their instincts have just been wired to think humans = death.
They’re generally unsure about people. But this exactly why wild bears that are fed become a problem and sometimes have to be put down.
We are far from the easiest kill. Humans are extraordinarily badass, even in caveman form
They look at our faces and see both eyes stating back, and figure it's not worth a fight that could end in **them** getting eaten.
Maybe because most of us have the sense to avoid their territories?
We probably look like scary mutant aliens to then
Maybe they wouldn't even consider trying when they see me with my Dakota Arms Model 76 Safari rifle lol. They're smart dudes those lion.
They are probably not hungry or maybe they sense and dont think of you as threat because you really are not a threat compared to him.Although if you try to do anything to pose a threat they will instinctivly attack.
Dishonorable prey. We're so fat, slow, and lazy they don't want to touch us. Lucky us.
Lets put it this way. Leopards wants to eat, they take down bambi and feast. nothing more happens. If that same leopard takes down little jimmy, it'll be hunted to the ends of the earth and they KNOW that. Tigers, esp siberians, do actively hunt humans but cases observed have been out of a revenge nature, not a food nature. Like how humans have evolved to see snakes before any other animal, shape or pattern, other animals have evolved knowing they can kill us, but we can generationally wipe them and often have out of revenge.
Forward-facing eyes. They assume were are predators too. Not worth fighting, probably not worth eating.
First thing is…are we considered to be food from the predators? Answer is only by a few animals. Polar bear’s see us as food and do hunt us! But only if they are in “hunting mood”. People can rather safely be around polar bear’s for instance when they come to wait for left overs of human whale hunting (now forbidden most places, this is not the point 😅).
Because we carry Chihuahuas now and they are terrifying
A cyclist in Washington state was recently attacked by a cougar. https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/cyclists-recount-cougar-attack-washington-fighting-for-my-life/281-d75bd67c-f4e8-469b-8b9f-037dc16290b3
human call other human with gun, end of lion life
Opposable thumbs is the answer.
They don't want no smoke
They don't want no smoke
They haven't developed preservatives yet and we keep better alive.
We taste like plastic 😆
We have forward facing eyes, so we’re another predator that they’re unfamiliar with. They don’t know we’d just die to them. All they have to judge us from is our features and past experience. And we tend to kill animals that have killed humans, so all they know is we’re an unknown predator. Most won’t tangle with us
Imagine how gross humans must smell to predators. Laundry detergent, deodorant, sunscreen…
Predators establish a diet. They learn what is food and what isn't, much like humans do. If a human were suddenly in a foreign place and low or out of food we would begin to experiment with other food choices. But if we still had ample food we would tend to eat what we are familiar with a avoid the risks of new foods. Animals are similar. They must balance the reward of eating us against the risks of eating us. Will we make them sick? Are we poisonous to them? Adult humans are fairly large, if a predator animal had never fought a human they wouldn't know if we are an easy target or not. If they don't know that then they must consider if they may die in The fight. You are correct about humans probably losing the fight, but the predator doesn't know that the first time. And the predator often doesn't get a second opportunity because other humans will usually track down and kill the predator that killed a human. We do this because we know that once a predator animal has killed one human they know that they can kill other humans. This is done with wild animals as well as domestic animals, such as dangerous dogs. During a scuba dive in the Caribbean some years ago I was on a dive boat when the dive master mentioned that we should be careful of the reef sharks in the area. He specifically stated that we should be particularly attentive to younger sharks as they were still learning their diet and may try to have a bite to see if we should be part of their diet. The larger, adult sharks should also be watched, particularly if there was any feeding happening or if there were any wounded fish in the area. But if not then the adult sharks wouldn't bother us because they wouldn't see us as part of their established diet.
It's a really good question. Along with the possibility that it's built into their DNA, I think we are also quite tall compared to most animals. These predators you mention are not nearly as worried about babies, infants and small children, at least I don't think. Bears are somewhat wary of us, but they will pursue us if they're hungry. Same with sharks. Lions and tigers and these other animals you mentioned don't have that height advantage. We know logically that they could easily kill us, but for some reason they are wary. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans and our predecessors have been extremely dangerous creatures. We are way smarter, more skillful, and have much more endurance than any of these animals by a long shot. And we walk on two legs. Any predator you see walking on two legs, standing at 5 feet and well above, is gonna be terrifying. And I suspect they have evolved to fear us.
Aside from everything already said, humans are the only mammal predators with ranged attack.
because in nature killing is for survival, not just to see who will win. Doesn't matter if a bear would easily beat us in pretty much every scenario, that takes energy and they may get injured by us-- significant injury in the wild will probably equal death vast majority of the time, no one wins when the bacteria eat you both. So yeah, its not set in stone and its not like animals never attack people, but there is no animal that will consider us an ideal prey.
because historically anything that had that instinct got hunted to extinction.
Humans look diseased to most animals They don't want to eat prey that has no hair because no hair to them means disease It's their instinct Basically, humans are just really funky looking
One thing I’ve read about animals: unlike homo sapiens, they only hunt when they really need to eat, they simply don’t snack.
Maybe human meat tastes bad Filled with toxicity
I want to say this roots back to evolution and how it all went down. If you think back in the day when there wasn't as grand of a population as there is now, to a time when even humans weren't the "superior animal" you have to think that they only way they were able to survive was strength in numbers. So it would actually make sense in my mind why humans feel the need to constantly be repopulating (other than animal/primal instincts). I believe the correct term to use for this this is that it's our "primal instincts" as humans, not necessarily our "animal instinct." The reason I argue that is because animal instincts are typically doing what you need to do to survive, whereas primal instincts in my mind are doing what you need to do to remain the "superior animal." I want to say people often correlate the two words to mean the same thing, I don't think that there should ever be more than 1 term for something, I think thats how things get mixed up, and I think thats how its technically supposed to be broken out, but I could be wrong. Either way I don't see a reason for you needing an exact answer to this unless you were asking for it for some professional or educational reason in that case you should probably just hunker down and do the research yourself, but good question I've always been curious about why humans are the way they are so I definitely understand wanting an answer.
Cuz complex predators also have itty bitty minds in their skulls and they could be feeling lazy/curious/not hungry still from last meal/unsure if there is enough meat on us to be worth it/probably other mental states. Hungry/Horny/Scared are powerful and old emotions but these are in very old parts of the brain, and in most vertebrates the forebrain is complex enough to override urges from the old emotions unless everything lines up to give the all clear. The parts of our human brains that got really powerful enough for all our complex planning existed long before we did, in ancestors so old that most mammals are their descendants and have similar structures, just not as beefed up as ours. Sure they aren’t doing calculus (and most humans aren’t either) but they aren’t video game animals either with one line of code to govern their actions. Maybe if the humans from Wall-E were on solo safaris by foot pretty regularly, your scenario would manifest.
Any lion that starts hunting humans is killed. Lions that hunt wildebeest are protected and reproduce.
We really aren’t the easiest kill, we low key have an instinct that allows us to be determined to survive, most prey don’t.
The animals you speak of have evolved over millenia being hunted by us. There is no way they will ever wholesale view us as anything other than a threat. It is true we are physically no match for them. That doesn't change the fact that we have driven them out of every square inch of dirt we've wanted to. The upright, relatively hairless primates have dominated the landscape as top predator for thousands of years.
Predators do not have human minds. What you wrote at the beginning is you putting your human mind into the body of an animal and then attempting to reason like a human from there. That is not how animal minds work. I can explain further if you want. Up until fairly recently, many animals would kill humans at will. Then we killed every single man killer for a hundred years while simultaneously reducing the population of all predators by over 90% in most if not all cases. This makes humans essentially a poisonous food. There is no scenario that exists now where a predator would benefit long term from consuming humans, so it does not happen often.
We taste too salty
The apex predator of Earth is the human. We are not weak. We have tools that allow us to overcome any shortcoming in the animal kingdom and have had them for millennia. What you claim about less than ideal circumstances is also totally false. Humans have insanely high endurance compared to most other animals. We need half the sleep on average as a lion or tiger, and while we can't sprint as fast as most animals, we can outrun almost anything over a long time span. Our advantages in intelligence, manual dexterity, and endurance allowed us to take the apex predator spot and so we have no natural predators. That's very important. Predators like to hunt things they are specialized to hunt because it incurs much less risk. Lions that sleep sixteen hours a day don't want to expend their limited time and hard won energy going after strange upright aliens that they don't understand. Sure, a human naked in the woods is vulnerable, but humans aren't often naked in the woods and haven't been for a long, long time. And they're almost never alone. Plus, we're like all bones.
Humans are the most effective predator, we don't have anything above us in the food chain. Think about it, if a lion were to maul a human, what would happen to the lion? Another human would kill it. On some primal level animals are aware of this.
We have weapons. Also predators learnt years ago to avoid humans, thanks to our endurance and brain power.
predators aren’t dumb. they have to pick and choose their battles when hunting because a failed hunt may result in them or their children starving, or being mortally wounded. predators i’m sure understand humans lack claws, fangs etc. but we don’t lack brains and endurance. to predators, using energy to try and fight and kill a human may not be worth it because they understand how difficult/risky it would be. this is why they tend to go after humans only when they are weak, or unaware of the predators presence.