I think this is the best thread I’ve read in months.
The problem here is the human really doesn’t have a decisive attack method at all. All I see suggesting is flinging, choking, biting. None of these are practical. Any predatory animal is going to shred even an exemplary example of a human. Take a tiger. What the heck are you going to do to KILL it? Anooying by trying to grab its very muscular neck? Get on top of it? Shove your head down its throat? Even if you had a spear you’d be hard pressed. A simple swipe of paw and you’re going to bleed to death… presuming you still have your intestines.
Herbivores might be easier… small ones. Even some larger ones wouldn’t be too hard. They’re not really knowledgable in fighting per se. Then again you’d be moronic to be in any closed space with a rhino. They’re very tough. Even if it was just stand still taking abuse aside from suffcating it I can’t see how you’d kill it. Same with horses, giraffes (I’d pay to see that 
), hippos, moose, gazelles.
I would go against any animal if I had some sort spear or pike (even wooden) but better yet a sword. Hell, even an elephant wouldn’t stand a chance against a sword. Only three animals would I not touch: a bear, a boar or a wolverine. No amount of armour will help you against a bear. They’re heavy, but fast and agile as well as strong. Boars are just mean. Wolverine… even the name is scary.
Well no, because if you had read the thread you would have noticed where it said “There was a story a few years ago of a rodeo rider who saw a moose out in the wild, jumped onto its back, and rode it. The only harm he suffered from it was a fine from the forestry service. I think we can agree that once the human is on the moose’s back, the human can win?”. This is all contingent all on staying on. That’s all I have to say to your entire post ** Gorsnak**. You appear not to have bothered to read the thread.
And you believe that a bear with no eyes is going to be able to kill someone before it dies? If so then explain how a bear with no eyes will even find and successfully swat them a person in a bulfighting arena. If not then the person wins by the terms of the OP. It doesn’t matter if the bear doesn’t run away, so long as it dies before the person, which it will. Nuff said.
And as I already pointed out, they are not. Weight for weight we are as well muscled as the average mammal. Our muscles are exactly the same strength as bull muscle or rat muscle or even insect muscle. Muscle is muscle. Since you are claiming that human muscle is puny in comparison to other animal’s muscles I’m calling…
CITE!
You make a lot of these assertions.
Cite!
I don’t know any such thing. Numerous examples have been given of humans without weapons fighting and subduing animals. We have high average muscle mass for our size, greater endurance than most mammals, and we move faster. We also have greater stamina. We are far from useless.
No, I am providing figures showing that humans are faster and stronger than you believe. You claimed that humans didn’t have much muscle. I have asked you for a reference and you can’t provide it. Since this is GQ you really do have to accept that humans are not weak for our size. I have also provided the reference showing humans are faster than apes and with stronger legs. That much you are unable to dispute. We have established that humans are stronger and faster than you believed, but that’s OK, we are here to eliminate ignorance, including yours.
Sigh. I have already proven you are wrong on this. Humans are known for a high average muscle mass. You are wrong in you belief that we are somehow less heavily muscled than other mammals. To continue to believe otherwise is wilful ignorance on your part.
And mmmiiikkkeee, what are those links to online kung foo magazines supposed to establish? They don’t mention everyone needs special training to choke down a horse. That is what you stated as fact, now I want a reference please. Can you provide it or not?
As you would know, if you had read the thread, another poster, in GQ, made the erroneous claim that adult moose have no predators. Since this is GQ I corrected that error. That was the point. Understand now? I never introduced the topic of moose and aside from that correction I never mentioned them.
No, what you did state as fact is that a human hand would be rendered useless by picking up a hedgehog. Since I’ve asked you to support this assertion and you can’t, we can consider it debunked.
Again, this ignores the examples of humans killing or disabling predatory animals such as large dogs and leopards. If ‘any predatory animal is going to shred even an exemplary example of a human’ how do you explain the examples given of non-exemplary humans defeating predatory animal? Are you suggesting all those stories are lies BlackPheonix? If not then your statement must be wrong mustn’t it?
BlackPheonix: have you ever seen elephants go crazy and trample humans? Your sword would do nothing.
Some people here are underestimating how much momentum many of these creatures have in a charge. We might get lucky and dodge the first charge or two but dodge and attack? Please. Have you ever seen a wolf chasing a rabbit? I would take a charging hippo vs. a man with a sword any day of the week. He is not going to stop dead with your first thrust much less a slash.
It really depends on the situation. If you are both in a boxing ring with no cover and no element of surprise, that’s one thing. If you are in a sleeping bag out in the middle of a forest, that’s a completely different scenario. A colony of fire ants could kill you if you are out in the wild, sleeping on the ground. A mountain goat could butt you off the side of a cliff.
I raised and trained guide dogs for almost four years, so I think I qualify as a dog handler.
I’ve killed a shepherd-size mixed breed dog that was charging full speed at me. His owner, who was several hundred feet away, would not call the dog off, and the dog was not responding to my own orders. So when he got close enough, I snap-kicked him in the chest and he dropped like a rock. Kicking an aggressive dog won’t get you killed; in fact, I’d say it’s a far better choice than your beloved grappling.
For those advising sticking an arm down a bear/large cat’s throat… what’s supposedly stopping the animal from chomping down and removing the obstacle?
There is no need to be insulting. You have one single, solitary anecdote (and an uncited anecdote at that!), and from this you conclude that any human can successfully remain on the back of any large herbivore. This is simply ridiculous. Tell me, have you any experience with largish animals? Have you ever been around, say, beef cattle? Docile animals, they are. Damn near unrideable, too, as a quick survey of bullriding competitions demonstrates. And, if you’d ever been in a stall with one and had it decide to lean against the wall with you in the way, and then lazily push back when you try to push it away, you’d maybe have an inkling of the sort of mass and muscle power it possesses, and you wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the disparity in that regard.
I have no idea in what sort of context this purported moose-riding occurred. I’m not even sure I believe it happened, though it’s not outside the realm of possibility. In the absence of contextual details, it’s rather laughable that you’d attempt to base conclusions on it. It’s doubly laughable that you think that a bullrider successfully riding a moose (For how long? In what environment? How old was the moose? In what health was the moose? Etc. Frankly, if you had any experience with moose you’d be thinking that there must be more to the story than we’ve heard, from the simple fact that moose ordinarily won’t let people get anywhere near them.) entails that you will be able to successfully ride a bison, and animal with substantial physiological and behavioural differences from moose.
As for your blithe dismissal of blinded bears, are you not aware that bears have one of the keenest senses of smell in the animal world? They don’t need eyes to locate you, and the fact that you think they might suggests a rather anthropocentric view of things which isn’t going to be in your favour should you ever actually come face to face with a large mammal intent on your death.
Oh, and speaking of cites, can you provide one for your claim that humans are heavily muscled compared to other largish mammals? Don’t necessarily disbelieve this, but that percentages you claimed before entailed that the skeletal structure of cattle makes up 25-30% of their weight (They dress out at 60-65% of live weight, minus the quoted 35% meat - actually skeletal weight would be even higher than 25-30%, since feet and skull aren’t included in dress weight. Anyways), and this strikes me as being a tad high.
I think dogs are in a different class that most other preditors. Dogs really only have one weapon, their mouth. And grappling can effectivly hold the weapon where it will do no damage. Grabbing even a big dogs ruff and hold it at arms length isn;t that hard. Then it’s just a simply matter of kicking the crap out of its ribs and guts. Their claws cause pain and bleeding, But they arn’t really a weapon that causes injury. Now a 40 pound mountain lion, even if you grabbed it by the nec,k could still probably rip the tendons out of you arms until you dropped it. I think dogs/wolves are something that humans match well against. I would much rather fight a 150 pound dog than a 40 pound cat.
By the way, can we at least give Dignan some pants? In his hypothetical fight, I mean. Everyone seems to want to throw him naked into the ring. If Dignan’s going into a cage match with some kind of feral behemoth, the least we can do is let him die with dignity.
Maybe you have extraordinary stamina, but I work a desk job and have been smoking the last 15 years. I’d give myself about even odds against a duck.
Sorry, but I will need at least some evidence before I will believe that a bear’s, or any animal’s, sense of smell is so good that it will enable it to swipe a moving target while blinded. That it’s smell would enable it to know that I am still in the arena, or even approximately what area I was in 2 seconds ago I will believe. That it will tell it where I am now is beyond belief.
Will these do? I’ll dig up the references for other species if you really want. Or perhaps you could show us your figures that demonstrate a lower human muscle mass percentage.
“In women, 36% of body weight is muscle and in men, it is 43%”
http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/faculty/mmills_fp/EVOLPSYC/fall00/panel7.htm
“we find that skeletal muscle tissue is the single most abundant tissue in an animal, representing up to 50% of body mass in some athletic species such as the dog and the horse”
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/205/15/2143
Bolding mine. Note that ‘dog’ her is greyhound and ‘horse’ is thoroughbred.
“Percent body mass distribution of juvenile, adult, and aged rats
Skeletal muscle 35.6 ± 0.7”
Common mistake. You can’t compare carcasse weight composition and live weight composition. Carcasse weight not only excludes feet and skull, it also excludes blood and usually viscera depending on your location.
"Muscle mass, for example, varies from 23-53% of body mass in mammals. Arboreal folivores (e.g., Bradypus and Alouatta) tend to cluster at the low end of the range, and also tend to have low overall metabolic requirements. Terrestrial mammals (e.g., Canis and Macaca), on the other hand, have higher muscularity indices along with greater energy demands. "
At 43-46% humans certainly apear to bleong at the upper end of the range.
I’d be careful even with the okapi. If it bumps over the hood and comes through the windshield, you’re toast. And I don’t know how much damage even an okapi eould cause. How big are they?
On a related note, parents of friends of mine totaled their '69 Mercedes against a moose on the Weslemkoon Lake road. The car was a writeoff. The moose walked away. Granted, it was probably gravely injured and died not long afterwards, but still, it walked away. I’d say that was Car 0, Moose 1.
A bear swipe covers a hell of a lot of territory. It doesn’t need to be real precise. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be at a tremendous disadvantage, comparatively, but to suggest that it’s not at all dangerous is a bit optimistic. Remember, to kill it you have to get in close after it’s blinded. It’s going to know where you are when you try to bite its jugular, or whatever your planned killing move is.
I have no numbers. I have no substantial opinion on the matter. I was merely asking you to substantiate your own somewhat counterintuitive claim. And, I see so far your cites demonstrate that humans are less muscular than dogs and horses, (Why do you conclude the data is specific to greyhounds and thoroughbreds? These types are mentioned in the abstract of the footnoted article, but there is no basis in that abstract to conclude that the cited data is specific to those breeds.) and that rats are as muscular as women. So far humans seem pretty normal in this regard.
What, exactly, is a common mistake? Friend, I’ve participated in the slaughter of a few of these things. I know the difference between live and carcass weights; indeed, that was the basis for my deduction. Take a 1000lb steer. (Slaughter weight is usually higher, but this makes the math easier.) It dresses out at, say, 630lbs (60-65%, as I said). The dress weight does not include blood or viscera. It does not include the head, feet, or hide. It includes the skeletal structure (minus skull and feet), and meat. No significant muscle is excluded from the dress weight. So if the steer’s muscle % is 35%, i.e., 350lbs, then the skeletal structure weighs 280lbs, plus the weight of the skull and feet, or something a bit over 300lbs, or 30% of total body mass. Seems high. I don’t know that it’s wrong, it would just surprise me to learn that nearly half the weight of a side of beef is made up of bone. I’d be perfectly happy to be informed as to what common mistake I’m making here, but your own explication of my error is utterly opaque to me.
Your cite in the last post had humans at 36% for women and 43% for men. That’s not 43-46%. What gives? This cite has mammals at 23-53%, which makes 38% dead average, 38% being inside the range exhibited by humans according to the 36/43% cite. I dunno, just doesn’t strike me as being a point in humans favour, especially considering the muscle tone exhibited by most office workers.
That’ s one refernce. Others give values of 46%, Naturally something like that varies between studies.
We are talking here about human males. 38% is never inside the range for human males. A human male would be very underdeveloped at 38%.
Those figure were obtained form average umans, including office workers. So we can assume that 43-46% will be representative of office workers as well. So far from being not well muscled as some have claimed, Dignan will be above par against most critters.
Now the time has come. If you believe tha human males are in any way below average in terms of muscle mass or strenth, can you present some evidence to back it up?
I know it’s commonl believd that humans are weak for our size, but there is no evidence to support that. We have an odd muscle distribution compared to quadripeds, but we aren’t weak.
You certainly haven’t demonstrated this. Perhaps not inside the range of healthy human males, you mean, which may well be true. I hadn’t realized that women weren’t to be considered in this matter, not that I’m questioning Dignan’s gender. However, similar gender disparity in muscle % is likely in other mammalian species, given the source of the disparity in women. This suggests that humans generally are indeed only average in this regard, given that you’re comparing human males to other mammals of both genders. Anyways, I have no real opinion on this particular aspect of the discussion, as I said. I was just disinclined to allow you to spout of things as facts without demonstrating them while challenging other people for cites, is all.
Frankly, I don’t think muscle % is likely to be a factor, as 45% of 180lbs is a hell of a lot less than 35% of 1500lbs.
How’s the planning for a chokehold on this guy coming? I’m not sure my arms are long enough to reach around his neck. Perhaps since he only outweighs me about 14:1 I’ll just wrassle his head around and gore him with his own horns.
I assumed he was male. If he’s male then we aren’t considering females.
No it isn’t, and if you want to contend that you will need to support it. Some species are equally size dimorphic, most aren’t. Dogs, cats, horses and bears for example are less dimorphic than people. Is suspect the muscle dimorphism would be almost nil in those species. There’s just no reason why the females need less muscle than the males, although one sex may benefit from greater size.
That was never the contention. Someone asserted that humans were poorly muscled for our ize. Clearly we are not.
How’s that strawman burn? When you show me where I ever suggested a chokehold on a bison then you can… well I guess you can provide the references I’ve asked you for, after that.
:sigh: Size dimorphism is not at issue. Muscle % is. Women have lower muscle % because, essentially, they have breasts and a uterus. They have this in common with all other female mammals. They do not have a lower muscle% because they are smaller, as merely being smaller says nothing whatsoever about body composition.
Anyways, I shall comment on this no more, as it is largely irrelevant to the question at hand. I fully concede that humans are not under-muscled, nor have I ever maintained that they were, but merely requested that you demonstrate your own unsubstantiated claims.
So sorry. Suffocate, not choke. You’re still delusional if you think you can take one of these things barehanded. Even exhausted, a 2000lb animal can toss you around like a rag doll. How do you propose to kill the bison, again? Ride it(!) till exhausted, then gouge out its eyes, and then smother it or something? Tell me, have you ever interacted with large grazing mammals, outside of watching Animal Planet? You have provided no evidence that it’s possible to safely mount such beasts under ordinary conditions. You have provided no evidence that it’s possible to remain on the thing’s back until it’s exhausted. You are, quite frankly, delusional. I would say, and given that my brother owns several bison and I’ve seen how they move and some portion of what they’re capable of doing, I’m not completely talking out of my ass, that you would be taking your life in your hands in a match with a healthy adult bison even armed with a spear. In a confined space where they feel threatened, they always, always, always face you, and they’re plenty agile enough to prevent you getting around them. You will only successfully get onto their back if you are both extremely acrobatic and sensationally lucky. And once you’re there, I give you essentially no chance of remaining there for more than a few seconds. And when you come off the animal’s back, you’re going to land awkwardly and be at a decided disadvantage with regards to being trampled. And they WILL trample you. Bison routinely kill coyotes (and dogs) by trampling them to death, particularly when there are new calves in the herd. If you were to be hunting them, you’d be well advised to exploit psychological factors and stampede them off a cliff, and not face off against them directly. Oddly enough, this is precisely what the people most familiar with the beasts actually did. Fancy that! However, Dignan’s terms do not appear to allow the use of cliffs.
Similar comments are generally applicable to other large herbivores. Cattle have had aggressiveness bred out of them for millenia, but you still couldn’t pay me any amount of money to get into a confined area unarmed with a bull and then behave in a threatening manner towards him. Not a freaking chance. Hell, a lot of bulls don’t even chase worth a damn. Most cows you just wave your arms a bit and they move off, but a lot of bulls will turn and look at you and snort a bit. Fortunately, being herd animals, they’ll usually move off to follow the cows you just spooked, but absent that, you want to be real careful in how you behave. Because if they come after you, you might successfully evade them…decent chance on a single pass, I’d say, but if you fail, you’re in for a world of hurt. Underestimating the power these animals have is extremely foolish.
Moose, as above, but for several months a year have a 7’ array of spikes on their heads. Cape buffalo…no thank you. Horses bite. They can also shatter your skull in a heartbeat, and have pretty good aim with their feet.
You seem to believe this myth that herbivores don’t fight. Sure, most of them run given the option, but backed into a corner, they all fight, and generally fight well. In an enclosed space where a large herbivore feels threatened and sees no avenue of escape, you better believe it’s going to be coming straight at you, and you’re badly outclassed in size, strength, weaponry, and armor. The only thing you’ve got going for you is your brain, which in this case will mostly just allow you to experience the fear of death more poignantly than your opponent does.
As for the other references you’ve asked me for… :mad: I said repeatedly that I had no information regarding relative muscle %, and was merely asking you to back up your own claims. I then disputed your interpretation of your own cites, which I still believe to be questionable. I never claimed that humans are puny undermuscled animals. Ever. So why in the blue blazes would I be obliged to provide a cite for it? Jesus Christ!
Nonsense. The uterus weighs marginally more than the male sexual organs, so it is essentially insignificant. Women have a lower muscle percentage because… wait for it… women have smaller muscles than men. It’s a testosterone effect. Haven’t you worked out why weight athletes get done for elevated testosterone levels in blood tests? Haven’t you noticed that 6’ Nicole Kidman is not as well muscled as a 5’8” Tom Cruise? Do you really think that she only weighs less than him because she’s got tits and a uterus? Sure the breasts could make a difference in well endowed women, but it’s not great. The difference is an issue of different sex roles and simple sexual dimorphism.
You wanna contend that ‘Women have lower muscle % because, essentially, they have breasts and a uterus’ I’m going to have to ask for something to support it.
Being smaller is in large part function of muscle differences. IIRC about 75% of the size dimorphism is due to the increased muscle mass of men and associated increase in bone mass, The rest is accounted for by height differences.
So when people described Indians taking horses barehanded by suffocating them they were delusional.
25 years living on a ranch. And these are Brahma hybrids. Not your average placid Taurus with their docked legs and docile temperament. I’ve yarded, branded, wrestled, dipped, cut and ear tagged. I’ve been chased. I’ve been thrown in the air. I’ve been trampled and I’ve been hit a few times. As result I’ve had one broken rib and too many bruises and probable cracked ribs to count. I know what it’s like to be in a confined area with a pissed off animal. I also have the sense to know when to roll under and when to go over the rails. But that’s not always possible. Sometimes you’ve just got to try to get out of the way as best you can and roll with it. I also know I can wrestle a 200 kg steer to the ground. I’ve done it and I’m not a big man. I’ll admit I’ve never ridden an adult cattle beast, but I’ve ridden plenty of horses bareback and they’ve gotten frisky on occasion. I think I can say I know cattle. I think I can claim working knowledge of horses too. And a little knowledge of sheep and camels to boot.
Why do you ask?
I admit I don’t know bison either. They are clearly far more agile than cattle, because people can and do get around cattle.