I think most people have read the stories of chimpanzees going berserk and inflicting terrible injuries on their keepers, due to their immense strength. This got me thinking, if you cross paths with an enraged chimpanzee, what is the best method for fighting it off?
I suppose if you’re in the open, the best method is probably to run for it, and hope the chimp loses interest? However, suppose you’re in a more enclosed space. What is the best method now? The chimp has long, powerful arms, so you want to avoid those, and also a nasty bite. Could a chimp take a boxer’s jab to the chin and not be dazed? Do chimp’s have the same vulnerability to jabs in their chins as humans do?
Suppose for the sake of argument we’re talking about a well-built adult male who can throw a punch.
HUGE disclaimer: I can’t answer this question for you, but I might be able to lead you in the right direction.
First, I don’t think it’s fully understood how or why a knockout happens. This throws a wild card on the question right off the bat.
Second, it could have something to do with our heads sitting right on top of our spines like . . . well, like a punching bag. Look at how our spine comes up into the bottom of our skull versus how a chimp’s kind of enters through the back. The mechanics of that is going to result in more of a whiplash/rattling force when the human gets hit.
Finally, from what I understand, their skulls are thicker, their brains are smaller, and their chins (“the button,” in terms of getting the KO) are farther from their brains.
All that being said, I just don’t know. My best guess is: unlikely, but possible. I’d pay a lot of money to see Brock Lesnar vs. a chimp :D.
Call me a defeatist if you wish, but I honestly don’t think there’s much you can do. A chimp keeper at a zoo in Sweden has said that there is no way she would go in to them alone and as she is considered one of the best primate experts in the country she probably knows what she’s talking about.
In one of his books*, animal hunter Frank Buck claimed that he knocked out an enraged orangutan with a haymaker to the jaw. If true, I’d think you could take down a chimp the same way.
The face is full of sensitive nerves and organs in all mammals. It is certainly plausible that you could punch a chimp out, but you’d have to be more precise than with a human. You’d really need to avoid the skull as much as possible and focus on the jaw. The nose might be a good target as well. Anything else has a lot of bone around it and might not be a good target. The good thing about animals is that they often don’t persist in fighting after being wounded seriously. If you land a blow that breaks the jaw, knocks out some teeth, or stuns him hard enough to sit him down, you’ve probably won. Personally I wouldn’t try for a knockout, I’d go right for the eyes and not stop until he quit or I’d blinded him.
I saw a nature show once which showed a chimp fall 30 feet onto concrete, where it landed on its head. It got up, shook itself off, and walked away. I bet knocking one out with a punch would be damn difficult.
While true it’s generally accepted that it has to do with minor trauma to the brain stem (this usually happens when the head rotates sharply) or the brain being violently moved inside the skull. I would guess that a smaller brain would make them more susceptible to knock-out.
I think this is a conditional question; Could you win a fight with a chimp by KO’ing him and if a chimp was standing relaxed would a hard right crossed knock him out.
My WAG is no, yes. That said, given what we’ve seen happens to humans in confrontations with chimps I’m guessing going for the KO is as good as strategy as any. I’m pretty sure if Brock Lesner got a clean shot he would drop a chimp like a sack of potatoes.
Well, for starters, if you try and ue your arms, you’d better be a profesisonal boxer or you’re an idiot. Chimps have great big mighty arms. Humans have great big mighty legs. Not suprisingly, we both use our great big mighty limbs for propulsion.
Kick the beast in the face. And then keep kicking. Hard. Otherwise, an angry chimpanzee can probably kill you. Only a fool would try to punch it out, because that would be going onto its favored turf, so to speak.
Buck claimed that he had no choice – he and someone else were holding the orangutan so someone else could put a collar on it, and it slipped out of the other guy’s grip. Buck let go and waded in close, then hit the orangutan with “an uppercut with all my beef behind it” before it got a chance to grab him, pull him in, and bite (which, he says, was what orangutans would normally do). He knew his only chance was to knock it out with one blow.
Buck was a shameless self-promoter, it’s true, but if the story is at all true, it doesn’t seem likely to have been exaggerated. It’s hard to imagine any other reason or scenario for doing this.
According to websites I read while looking for the reference, I find others reporting that Buck used to discipline orangutans with a crowbar – something you certainly don’t find in his books. I don’t know if that’s true, either, but, if so, Buck had experience hitting orangutans.
It’s rather difficult to knock out a human being with a blow to the jaw from a bare fist. Given that a chimp is going to be
[ul][li]fastermuch lower to the ground[/li][li]have a stronger neck[/li][/ul]I’d say the chances were slim at best.
I doubt a person would stand much chance against a chimp no matter what you do.
