Which animals (dangerous ones, or obvious stereotypes) can humans defeat in an unarmed battle? I know humans can defend against sharks, and have to survive. But I specifically mean which animals can a human being literally kill while unarmed? Some key matchups I’d like some insight into are:
How would a human do against an ostrich in an unarmed fight, how would they do against a fully grown kangaroo, and how would they do against a bobcat or smaller side big-cat species?
I’m assuming a human isn’t going to be able to choke out a gorilla or bear, but how about fighting a kangaroo or a ostrich?
Both kangaroos and ostriches have been known to kill people with their kicks, either by impact or disembowling.
You might have to qualify “beat”. If I tried to attack an alley cat that didn’t run away I could probably kill it; how badly my hands and arms would be shredded would make it a rather Pyrrhic victory.
Unarmed, we can beat anything small enough to stomp. After we get to anything too large to fit completely under our foot, things get iffy. This generalization, of course, ignores venemous creatures like cone shells that are tiny but still lethal. Also, as has been mentioned, in many cases victory will be accompanied by injury.
All and all humans are pretty wimpy for their size. For things like total victory meaning without injury, we are pretty much limited to small stuff, and some of that can put a hurt on us. It took tools and a brain for us to move beyond a vegetarian species and really jump start human society centered around eating meat. Even a domesticated house cat can put a substantial hurt on a person if they so desired but their instinct would be to get away normally, outrunning and out maneuvering us, though we could get lucky with a substantial kick, but if we are not using shoes, …
Even with primitive tools humans didn’t engage the prey directly many times but used the tools to help steer them towards their death such as cliffs, and getting fish out of the water.
You understand that humans ‘naturally’ would be using tools, right? What you are asking is the equivalent of ‘what can a tiger beat without teeth and claws naturally?’. A naked human who is not allowed to even pick up a rock isn’t natural…it would be a heavily handicapped creature fighting at a huge disadvantage.
So, it’s not a very interesting debate, but if you really have to know I guess such a crippled human could beat anything it could stomp on or crush that couldn’t run away and wouldn’t be able to bite back or use poison. Or any creature equally crippled. Say, we could beat a lion without claws, teeth and perhaps 2 legs broken, or a snake without venom or fangs in a box, or a blind bear without teeth, claws or legs.
The other thing to bear in mind is that it’s unnatural for a human to try to kill a larger animal alone. We simply didn’t evolve that way; human beings are a social animal and hunt in groups.
This is hardly unique to us. Wolves are pack hunters and rarely hunt alone; they work together to both identify and take down prey. Several wolves can kill a large caribou where one could not, at least not without a very high risk of being injured.
Calling humans wimpy kind of misses a lopt of evolution’s point. Of course we aren’t meant to fight without cooperation and tools, but like you said, that’s like asking tigers to fight without teeth. To use a more extreme example, honeybees are objectively so wimpy in a fight that they literally die whenever they sting. A single honeybee not only can’t defeat a human (unless the human is allergic) but is guaranteed to die in the process. So… anyone here wanna fight a beehive? I think it’s fair to say bees have a well deserved reputation for effective self-defense.
Just as an aside, that’s not true. The human lineage has always been omnivorous even prior to tool use, at least as early as Ardipithicus and likely since the Gorilla split.
As for what we can kill with our bare hands, it’s probably more than you think. Unsurprisingly, humans are a pretty adaptable species. We lack a lot of muscle mass and claws, but we’re larger than a great deal of other apex predators. A famous example is Carl Akeley who killed a leopard with his bare hands. He admitted he was lucky and it may have been wounded, but still. He’s not the only person that has reported killing a leopard with their bare hands and surely some of the reports must be true. We know that humans can kill large dogs, because it happens with a bit of regularity. People can kill aggressive dogs in the 80-100 lb. range and there are many examples of this happening. I would wager that our ability to kill apex predators probably tops out around 100 lbs. At that point, our size advantage isn’t enough to overcome teeth and claws, but it’s dependent on the species. Smaller alligators can be relatively easily caught and immobilized on land, even larger than 100 lbs, so it’s not unreasonable to think that once you’ve immobilized one, you could find a way to beat it or choke it to death somehow. Obviously, if you figure a way to get any solely aquatic animal out of the water with your bare hands, it’s a pretty done deal.
With some thick boots and clothes and gloves and eye protection (does that count as “unarmed”?), you could probably stomp out some pretty venomous snakes, tarantulas, and scorpions in relative safety.
I’d say there are quite a bit more things you could kill or at least survive if you graduated to full chain mail armor, but who walks around in that.
I saw a man on the internet punch a kangaroo in the face to save his dog from being attacked. I consider kangaroos up there with gorillas as some of the most fearsome animals on the planet. So that guy has my respect. But he didn’t kill him.
I think it’s a gray area. To me, an ‘unarmed human’ in this context is one without any tools, which would include clothes. If the OP means simply without a weapon to start, well, said clothes could be used to make a tool to use, or used as a tool directly. In which case an ‘unarmed human’ would expand what they could or couldn’t take on. As you say, if we are talking about an ‘unarmed human’ in plate mail or other kinds of armor then that human is going to be able to take on a lot more. Hell, just about anything if the armor is right, as the human would BE a weapon.
If the OP means unarmored to mean sans all tools though, I think that human would have a hard time surviving at all, let alone in a fight with just about anything.
I had to deliver a mercy blow to an injured squirrel that had been hit by a car. I saw the tire roll directly over the animal’s pelvis and hind legs. The poor critter couldn’t move properly and was clearly badly injured and in pain.
I had an axe and still couldn’t avoid a blood injury during the episode.
I would have liked to have seen that. An axe? A squirrel weighs a pound. An axe isn’t a good idea. If it’s on the road, you’re going to end up trashing your axe and could end up throwing a piece of metal. The old hunter’s way is simply to put your heel between its shoulder and head and put your weight on it quickly and lean forward. It pops the neck to end the pain and the weight forward crushes its skull for nearly instant death provided you aren’t keeping the brains to eat. If it’s still moving too much to get a boot on, then a makeshift club to the back of its head will stop it until you can crush the head. Quick and painless. If you have thick gloves, you can also just pick it up and twist the head with a quick sharp movement while simultaneously pulling it away from the body. With most small animals(probably anything under five pounds or so-above that and you’ll need something else), severing the spinal cord is almost always the way to go. Hope that helps you for next time.