Humans as Prey

[Q.E.D]

You forgot one, Martin.

Protective

Mother black bears with cubs are primarily interested in defending them. The first thing you ought to do if you surprise a mother bear with cubs is stop, turn around and walk away slowly. Most of the time she will see you are no longer a threat and won’t attack. If she does attack, it is generally only to incapacitate you, to ensure you’re no longer a threat. In this case, fighting back won’t work since mother bears will almost always fight to the death to defend the cubs. In this case, playing dead is your best option, since she will see you’re no longer a threat and will usually leave you be. If you have a gun, of course, you could probably kill her, which would guarantee your survival, but should you? I probably would not; she’s just a mother doing what any good mother would do.

ETA: Excellent post, BTW, Martin.

[Spoke]

Tigers seem pretty well-designed for preying on humans (and hominid precursors) in Asia.

And according to this National Geographic article, humans ancestors also endured regular predation in Africa:

Three South African scientists believe they have identified several predators that preyed upon human ancestors millions of years ago.

The potential hominid killers include Megantereon, an extinct saber-toothed cat with oversize fangs, the leopard, and spotted hyena.

[ShibbOleth]

@John Mace

But they usually spit us out after tasting us. They prefer plump, fatty seals to scrawny humans.

Most do, some don’t. You’re mainly thinking of great whites. Around here (Florida), the most dangerous shark seems to be the bull shark. There are no plump, fatty seals nearby, and bull sharks are very opportunistic. Tiger sharks also seem to be in the same mode.

Alligators will occasionally take people as food, just like they’ll take deer, dogs, and anything else that gets close enough and over which they hold a size advantage.

[Spoke]

Here’s a whole book on man as prey: Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution. From the blurb:

Man the Hunted argues that primates have evolved not as hunters but as the prey of any number of predators, including wild cats and dogs, hyenas, snakes, crocodiles, and even birds. Eyewitness accounts, data collected by the authors, and the published reports of naturalists establish the astonishing extent to which living monkeys, lemurs, apes, and even humans fall victim to a wide variety of predators, some of which even specialize in the consumption of primates. Additionally, the fossil record demonstrates that primates have been prey for millions of years, a fact that necessarily shaped the evolution of our earliest ancestors in body and behavior.

[KlondikeGeoff]

@Siam Sam

I did see footage, though, of a stupid Thai reporter who got too close to a wild herd during a news report, and he got trampled flat. Amazingly, he lived.

Lived as a flat reporter?

[A.R.Cane]

@KlondikeGeoff

Lived as a flat reporter?

You obviously don’t watch cartoons.

[robardin]

@KlondikeGeoff

Lived as a flat reporter?

Yeah, but now he’s only capable of a deadpan delivery.

[mr.jp]

Interesting post Martin Hyde. Which animal used to hunt black bears?

[Ephemera]

Bump for Martin Hyde. I’m curious about bears as prey as well.

And thanks to every one else, too.

[Spoke]

Well, humans have been preying on black bears for thousands of years, no?

That should be enough to cultivate the “run away” response to humans usually seen in black bears.

[Lemur866]

Well, back in the Pliestocene only a few thousand years ago there were a lot more large predators in North America.

Off the top of my head, you’ve got grizzly bears, short faced bears (Arctodus - Wikipedia), American lions, Smilodon, Homotherium, and other medium-large cats like cougars and jaguars, dire wolves, gray wolves, and humans. Maybe throw in a giant ground sloth, but even if they ate meat occasionally they probably didn’t hunt.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the fossil skull with two leopard punctures in the back.

If leopards still today prey on chimpanzees, our closest relatives, (not to mention baboons), then it stands to reason that they once preyed on us, too. To a leopard, hominid = dinner.

Also, primatologists have it as their working assumption that leopards are one of the main predators on primates. Which would include us, since we’re primates. Leopard predation on humans is still an ongoing, and increasing, problem in some districts of India.