What animals could I kill with my bare hands?

Salutations Dopers,
I suppose I should preface this by saying that I have absolutely no intention of slaughtering or even slaying any animals. Honest.

With that said, I am very curious about my killing ability. I am a male, 5’11", 180 pounds, medium/muscular build. I jog and work out, but I’m not buff by any sense of the word.

Lately I have been curious about how many animals, that, if I was put together in 1v1 combat, I could kill with my bare hands? When I say animal, I use a very loose definition. For example, clownfish, stingrays, and giant man-eating ants would also be on my list of curiosity.

Obviously, for some animals such as lions and tigers, I have no chance in hell slaying bare-handed. If I was given a sword and shield, would I fare any better against such beasts?

I wont lie. This question has no urgency; however, in the sake of fighting ignorance: what animals may die at my fist?
Best wishes,
Autolycus

I lay dibs on a cow as an answer.

I said it first. You all get your own answers.

Cow? Have you ever seen a cow in person? Those things are huge. No way in a hell you could kill one with your bare hands. What are you going to do? Shove your fist down it’s throat to choke it and hope you don’t get trampled in the resulting thrashing about?

From a fist? I’d think that you’d need to include strangulation for strict bare hand killing. Many animals are intentionally killed with blunt force trauma. They have been forever. Generally another implement is needed to inflict enough damage though.

Auto, I’m honestly not intending to be mean, or cast aspersions on you, but I’ve done a search for your posts, and…do you think you might have a drinking problem?

Well, those are animals (remember, mammals are a very small subset of the animal kingdom). Most insects and spiders would be pretty easy (especially since you said 1v1, so swarms are out). That gives you a few million possibilities all by itself.

The OP assumes “1v1 combat”, so I’m assuming that the critter, for whatever reason, wants to hang around and fight, rather than fleeing much faster than you can give chase. In other words, we’re not asking what you could expect to eat if left in the wild to hunt with no tools.

Given that rather artificial limit on the scenario here’s how I think it stacks up …

Among land animals the small herbivores are pretty easy. Anything cat-sized or smaller would be easy to kill. e.g. a squirrel, a bunny, racoon, etc. There are hundreds of species in this category.

A baby or pygmy deer, e.g. herbivores up to maybe 50 lbs, is probably doable, but you’ll take some battle damage along the way. Herbivores bigger than, say, 75 lbs will be able to fight you off essentially idefinitely. They also probably have better pain tolerance than you do, so in a dedicated scrap you’ll cut and run before they do.
Once we get to land carnivores it gets tougher. A 10 lb alley cat, even though a domesticated species, will put up a spirited fight. If you don’t shy away from getting thoroughly bitten/scratched, you can certainly break its neck or back with a twist. IOW, it can’t kill you, but it can create enough injury to make you give up the fight.

Same story for dogs. A Dachshund or Chihuahua is an easy kill; one twist & it’s over. A Scotty or Spaniel less so; you’ll need to kick in its ribs or break some limbs to slow it down & then break its neck for the coup de grace. A Doberman, Shepard or Mastiff is gonna be a real fight to the death for somebody, again assuming the animal is motivated to fight rather than flee.

Wild carnivores are similar, but the max size you can take out is smaller. A bobcat is roughly the same size as a spaniel, but worlds apart in combat capability.

Any of the primates bigger than 15-20 pounds will kick your butt.

Birds are inherently much lighter built, and it doesn’t take much to break a wing, at which point they’re doomed. And the same points about herbivore vs carnivore applies. A small crow, a small hawk, and a big pigeon are all the same size, but very different contestants. All three will die at your hands, but I bet you’ll be bleeding in several places before the hawk succumbs.

For fish, a critical question is choice of arena. In shallows adjacent to shore you can kill almost any fish < 100 lbs by slinging it onshore & just waiting. Away from shore getting a grip on, much less killing, even a 1 lb fish is gonna be tough. Once you do grab it though, it’s toast.

As noted by others, you rule the insects, worms, and other small mindless critters.
If I was to summarize all the above, I’d say that you can kill pretty much any herbivore < 75 lbs and most carnivores < 25 lbs. For particularly domesticated species bump the poundage a few % and for particularly fierce or smart or well-armored ones, lower it a bit.

For critters 20-30% larger than that, you’ll win some times and the rest of the time it’ll be a standoff.

At double that size, you win occasionally; most times you get wounded pretty good, perhaps fatally in the absence of medical care (ie in the wild).

At triple that size, you lose every time; the question is whether the animal remains behind to finish you off, or is content to gore you and wander away while you bleed to death.
Now change the scenario to add even primitive tools like a club or a spear or a teammate, and the whole game shifts. Which is why we’re on top of the food chain despite being utterly unable to catch a wild bunny.

People have killed leopards with their bare hands before (including a 73 year old man ) so if you are lucky you can probably manage it. There was also that case back in 2001 where a guy dragged a 7 foot long bull shark (that attacked his nephew) out of the water.

Cockroach, dude, you could definitely beat a cockroach, though after last night I have to tell you - make sure the nozzle of the spraycan is pointed at the cockroach and **not ** your face.

Summarising LSLGuy’s post, the answer to the OP is:

“Small ones” :smiley:

The answer lies somewhere between a fly and a hippo.

Definitely rabbits. Just unintentionally holding them wrong can make them kick hard enough to break their own spines.

You can defeat a Mt Lion, wolf or Leopard- if you are not suprised by them. And you don’t panic. And you know what to do. In other words, a human can beat most any critter smaller than him.

I’d give you about a 50-50 shot, one on one, versus a human.

Wow, that sounds like the climax of a particularly traumatic childhood memory.

Not really, but I did raise rabbits and work with a vet for a while so I heard the warnings a lot. I saw one that was paralyzed from the mid-back down once, not pretty. Its never happened to me, but it happens for sure.

The question as posed is pretty much impossible to answer because there is no acknowledgement of odds. As others have pointed out, humans have killed leopards, sharks, pigs and a huge variety of other creatures with there bare hands. However that doesn’t mean that you have very good odds fo defeating those creatures, just that it is possible. If we are only talking possible then you could defeat any creature less than twice your own weight. That covers leopards, pigs, wolves and small bears amongst other things.

In terms of animals that you could kill with better than 95% certainty, the list is fairly small, but then it is even for dedicated predtaors like lions and dogs. You are essentially restricted to animals less than half your own weight.

Just to further complicate the issue, we need to know what the circumstances are. People have, in the past, routinely killed grazing animals like horses and cattle with their bear hands. The trick is to fight or run the animals to near exhaustion (few animals have the stamina of a human) and then cover their noses, preventing them from breathing. So given the right circumstances you coudl kill and animal of 3/4 of a tonne using your bare hands. However this technique isn’t going to be applicable under all possible scenarios.

Basically we need more information to answer the question.

Plus, wasn’t there the story of the guy this summer who killed a buck or elk or some humongo woodland quadruped with his bare hands after he found it attacking his daughter?

If I had bear hands, I’m sure that would significantly improve my odds.

:::d&r:::

I suppose posts like this are the reason your user name is what it is? :smiley:

I’d also comment on the topic at hand but it seems pretty well covered.