What Are Humans Good At Compared To Other Animals [Better Explanation of Question in Post]

[Kimera757]

@Arrendajo

We can breed like nobody’s business.

Not really. Humans are generally slow reproducers (nine month gestation size, average litter size is close to 1). Because we have a long fertile period, a woman could theoretically push out a lot of babies over the course of twenty or thirty years. In practice, a woman wanting to do so would start suffering from health problems.

Humans grow up slowly. Considerably larger animals (blue whales, elephants) grow more quickly than humans. Oddly, there are some cicadas that take longer to reach maturity. This has a bigger impact on our slow growth rate. Of course, human infant mortality can be greatly reduced compared to other species.

Humans can breed at pretty much any time, which is rare for mammals. We don’t have a yearly cycle for either sex.

@spamforbrains

That’s simply not true. A lot of animals can run humans into the ground when it comes to endurance running. Why do you suppose we started riding horses and using dogs for hunting? Both can run much faster than humans and go for much longer.

Both are much faster than humans (at least when it comes to running), but horses aren’t as enduring as many people think. (Mules are more enduring.) Carrying a person tires out a horse. If you want to move rapidly (for instance, before a battle) you actually need to take multiple horses, and switch when one begins to tire.

[penultima_thule]

@Terry Bisson

We are the only sentient race in this sector of the Universe and we are made out of meat.

…

[Annie-Xmas]

Our ability to work together is phenomenal. When we chose to cooperate, no other animal can do what we have done.

[Leo_Bloom]

Well, about cooperation and that crowded airplane: bees and ants are good at that sort of thing.

But like the dentist-willingness (and, you know, the Bible) we have free will, which is pretty awesome.

Which reminds me of the great line from the remake of The Fly, where he’s just human enough still yet to warn his friend: “You ever heard of insect politics? There is none.”

[Colibri]

@Xema

Very interesting article. It pretty well makes the point, even if the author’s conclusion is “They didn’t quite succeed”.

It’s worth noting that they were a group of elite marathoners chasing the pronghorn in a confined valley. So what it principally illustrates is humans’ skill at planned, cooperative hunting - something that various animal species do, but not nearly so well as us.

True, but it also should be recognized that this was an extreme test in that they were chasing the fastest game animal in existence, and that although they were trained marathoners only one of them had previous experience with this kind of hunt. One would expect that against slower species (which is all of them) and with more hunting experience their success rate might be decent.

[Xema]

@Colibri

One would expect that against slower species (which is all of them) and with more hunting experience their success rate might be decent.

Agreed. I don’t think there’s any serious doubt that persistence hunting is real and significant in human history. And the hunters do not need to be world-class athletes.

But relevant to the OP’s question, I think it’s clear that Pronghorns are better than humans at running. Consider a race over any distance from 50 ft to 120 miles. Or a two-round match (lowest time wins): Round 1 - human tries to get within 25 ft of a pronghorn. Round 2 - pronghorn tries to get within 25 ft of the human.