# Which Animal has Preyed on Humans the most? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 2, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531 "2014-05-02T19:42:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/21 "2014-05-03T04:01:00Z")
Since I have an expansive definition of “human,” I will go with the leopard as the animal we can prove as having [preyed on us the longest.](http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/507880/enlarge) The range of human sizes and the range of the sizes of leopards’ prey overlap almost completely, as did our physical locations for millions of years. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/22 "2014-05-03T06:03:15Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > That…might be right, really. Can we do: Number of wars and estimated number of people killed in wars which were recorded since the beginning of recorded history - estimate of the number of people who lived before recorded history. Would that worK? Maybe give us a ball park figure. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/23 "2014-05-03T09:35:39Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > How about crocodiles, or are they too geographically limited to be in contention? Nope (especially if we include alligators) - they get my vote. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/24 "2014-05-03T09:45:45Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Probably none of it. The most accepted hypothesis is that upright walking evolved as either a heat regulating mechanism or a walking efficiency mechanism (or maybe some combo of them both). The “man stood up to see over the grasses” hypothesis was thrown around a bit 40 years ago or more, but not much since then. There’s another theory that as neonate hominids became more and more helpless, selection favored those that walked bipedally and carried their infants. I don’t think anyone has found an Australopithecine infant skeleton, or even skull, so it’s still theory, but newborn apes are pretty helpless, albeit not for very long. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/25 "2014-05-03T16:43:54Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > Can we do: > > Number of wars and estimated number of people killed in wars which were recorded since the beginning of recorded history - estimate of the number of people who lived before recorded history. > > Would that worK? Maybe give us a ball park figure. No, because the OP talked about _hunting and eating_. Most wars at least didn’t end up with the losers being ground into ‘long pig’ burgers ;). Though I wouldn’t doubt that a very few in certain cultures might have. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/26 "2014-05-03T17:43:19Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > The problem with snakes (I saw a graphic on IFLS recently that showed snakes in 3rd place, after mosquitos and humans, at least in he modern age) is that most of them do not actually eat the humans they kill. Possibly. Since homo sapiens are only 200k years old I don’t know if snakes have been a major threat, but going back millions of years they were likely a much bigger threat. To what degree is our fear of large animals based on an evolutionary fear of potential predators? Moose, rhinos, hippos, buffalo and kangaroos can be extremely dangerous, but people don’t seem to have the innate fear of them that we do of bears, crocodiles, snakes, large cats, etc. That could just be cultural. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/27 "2014-05-03T19:57:06Z")
Marketing departments. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/28 "2014-05-03T20:32:36Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > There’s another theory that as neonate hominids became more and more helpless, selection favored those that walked bipedally and carried their infants. I don’t think anyone has found an Australopithecine infant skeleton, or even skull, so it’s still theory, but newborn apes are pretty helpless, albeit not for very long. Unlikely. We started walking upright long before we started exhibiting the suite of neotonous traits associated with modern humans. Australopithecines exhibited chimp-like maturation patterns, so no reason to assume that the infants were much different. Remember, upright walking goes back at least 4M years, and maybe even further. As for Australopithecine skeletons/skulls, there are quite a few, including infants. The famous [Taung Child](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taung_Child) (1924) was the fossil that first put _A. africanus on the map… And then, of course, we have [Lucy’s Child](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060920-lucys-baby.html) which is classified as A afarensis_. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/29 "2014-05-03T21:06:46Z")
Not sure anything hunts humans specifically … I’d guess we taste bad … wolves will trot right by a herd of humans so they can get to the Yaks. I heard some time ago that there is theory floating about that credits our upright gait to the ability to use our arms to carry things. Every ape will know when a leopard makes a kill, and every ape will know the leopard stashes the kill in a tree nearby which every ape can climb to. But it’s very dangerous to feed right there, only humans can pick the carcass up and move it to safety. Makes sense that such an ability would be selected for through evolution. The evidence is the skeletal remains of prey animals with both leopard kill marks and human butchery. ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/30 "2014-05-04T04:34:13Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > If you go back far enough in time I think it will be a raptor dinosaur. They are reputed to have killed and eaten every human they ever saw. Am I being whooshed here? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/31 "2014-05-04T05:51:27Z")
What I’ve read that in Europe during war time there would be these dead bodies lying around and thats how wolves got over their fear of them. Same in places like Africa where you had many people sick of disease and who were to weak to defend themselves and thats how lions started to go after humans. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/32 "2014-05-04T09:30:32Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Same in places like Africa where you had many people sick of disease and who were to weak to defend themselves and thats how lions started to go after humans. I’m pretty sure Lions preyed on humans _long_ before humans had wars. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/33 "2014-05-04T17:43:18Z")
Let’s restrict the question to Homo sapiens sapiens - no doubt earlier human ancestors were small enough to be frequently predated by snakes, but my impression is that only a tiny number of snake species are large enough to actually eat modern people, and all of them are constrictor-types - most kill people with poision as a defence mechanism. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/34 "2014-05-04T17:51:48Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > What I’ve read that in Europe during war time there would be these dead bodies lying around and thats how wolves got over their fear of them. > > Same in places like Africa where you had many people sick of disease and who were to weak to defend themselves and thats how lions started to go after humans. Interestingly, I was reading a book by this guy (highly recommended, btw) > **[Jim Corbett](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Corbett)** > > Edward James Corbett CIE VD (25 July 1875 – 19 April 1955) was an Anglo-Indian hunter and author. He gained fame through hunting and killing several man-eating tigers and leopards in Northern India, as detailed in his bestselling 1944 memoir Man-Eaters of Kumaon. In his later years, he became an outspoken advocate of the nascent conservation movement. > Born in Naini Tal, Corbett explored and hunted in the jungles of India in childhood. He shot his first man-eater in 1907 and continued to hunt ... … and his theory, as a professional hunter of human-eating tigers and leopards, was that the mechanism by which these big cats turned to eating people was very different - in the case of tigers, they almost invariably turned to eating people when too old or injured to eat their preferred prey; but when it came to leopards, they often turned to eating people when they became habituated to eating dead bodies by scavanging. As Indians generally cremate their dead, the leopards usually develop a taste for dead people when there is a serious epidemic or famine that causes people in India to die in numbers too great to dispose of through the usual mechanism. Then, when the epidemic or famine is over, the supply of dead bodies dries up and the leopard takes to hunting live ones, having developed a taste for human meat. This makes human-eating leopards often even more trouble than human-eating tigers, as (a) the animal may be in prime condition rather than old or injured; and (b) some appear to actually prefer the taste of humans - turning down alternate prey. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/35 "2014-05-04T19:09:34Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > … > > If you go back far enough in time I think it will be a raptor dinosaur. They are reputed to have killed and eaten every human they ever saw. > [@AtomicDog](#): > > Am I being whooshed here? Yes you are. I think by now thanks to Spielberg the most scarifying ornery honey-badger of a dinosaur is a “raptor.” And dinosaurs and _Homo anything_ did not exist at the same time, despite Spielberg’s wonderful predecessors. But **TriPolar** gives the real reason, which wins by simplicity. In fact, I invoke Occam’s Razor, because it makes him sound even smarterer. ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531/36 "2014-05-04T21:36:36Z")
Came to say [tigers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_attack). > [@wiki](#): > > The most comprehensive study of deaths due to tiger attacks estimates that at least 373,000 people died due to tiger attacks between 1800 and 2009 [Decent podcast on man-eating lions](http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/missed-in-history-the-lions-of-tsavo-part-1/). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-preyed-on-humans-the-most/687531.md?page=1)