There’s nothing about GQ which requires uncritical acceptance of every suggestion that someone puts forth. People say things, I’ve given reasons for disagreeing with some of them, you’re free to believe what you want.
Moderating
You seem to be more interested in arguing with people than the actual factual answers to your question. This is better off in IMHO, where you can indulge your opinions all you want.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Because they are too busy stomping on grass
It’s usually a better survival strategy for a species to run from or avoid a predator than to actively challenge and fight it; and therefore most predator encounters are handled simply by escaping and not many prey species evolve fighting behaviors towards predators.
When they do need to fight or act aggressively, they tend to do it in they way they have adapted to… that is they fight other species the same way they fight each other. Bovid species do a lot of ramming and front-pressing and their bodies are adapted to it; thick tough skulls and horns, lots of power in the neck, etc. A buffalo will do a lot more head-butting other buffalo through it’s life to establish rank and mating opportunities than it will anything else. That’s primarily where the behavior comes from.
Their general defense is avoidance, running, and herd behavior; that keeps the species alive. Buffalo aren’t really adapted to live independent solitary lives and therefore don’t have bodies and behaviors suited for individual survival. Simple head-butting by groups of buffalo charging against the occasional lion going after a herd member works well enough, and there isn’t much pressure for buffalo to develop any fighting behaviors more complex.
Overall, if an individual gets separated from the herd and has to engage a big predator 1 on 1, they’ve screwed up majorly and often get removed from the gene pool. Often such individuals are young, old, or injured animals. And those animals are unlikely to contribute much to the gene pool at that point, so even if they learned another way to fend off a lion (such as stomping), it wouldn’t likely get incorporated into the general population.
So even if there is a behavior or technique that a buffalo could discover and use to enhance it’s individual survival chances, it’s group behaviors revolving around defense and reproduction that tend to be selected for in herding animals.
Even our own species (a social one) doesn’t have very impressive combat -suited bodies or behaviors. Stamina, intelligence (including tool use), and working as groups works best for us; few if any of us instinctively know how to fight a cougar or fend off an elk charge. We don’t need to know that. Most of us don’t even know how to fight each other very well; few people really need to know the myriad of fighting techniques and strategies we’ve collectively learned and passed on to get through life. As such only a tiny percentage of humans know them, and most of that knowledge is used for entertainment purposes (sport, demonstration, etc).
Same reason you cant just stomp on a pit bull, a quarter of your weight.
It’s not unheard of for a hooved animal to rear up and defend themselves with their feet.
Because they’re not Neal Youngfans?
Saw another video which illustrates the same issue. In this case it’s a yak vs a snow leopard. The mother yak is attacking the leopard in defense of her baby. She keeps trying to come at it with her horns, and the leopard pretty much ignores it. Then she gets too close and seems to accidently step on the leopard, at which point it immediately gives up and runs off.
Yeah…big cats are sort of “cat-like.” My (house) cats don’t normally let me step on them when I’m drunk or sleepy. Cats of any size tend to go for the throat. They wouldn’t be too successful at being predators if they just stood around and let other animals step on them. Besides, big cats tend to go for the older or younger or sicker members of the pack. Trying to defend your baby-momma’s kid only goes so far, you know.
Maybe its because all but one of the buffaloes can outrun the lions.
The leopard has a grip on the calf’s throat and won’t let go. At 1:24, she knocks it loose by headbutting it. After that, it runs away.
no, because the skull is pretty thick and hard, plus it has those dense horns up top. The most vulnerable areas are the neck/throat and the belly behind the rib cage. The neck because predators will often try to bite down hard here and strangle the prey, and the belly because a well-placed swipe of a claw can tear the abdominal wall causing the prey’s guts to come spilling out. once that happens it’s doomed; and trying to rear up or stomp the predator can expose that area.
like this crocodile going after a zebra (spoilered for gruesome, you’ve been warned)
I always suspected it might have something to do with the fact that lions are in Africa, while buffalo are mostly in North America.
Or because all but one of the buffaloes can outrun at least one buffalo…
We have bison. Africa has the Cape Buffalo.
I don’t know what you’re seeing. That leopard was not deterred by being flipped in the air from the yak’s horns. At about 1:25 the yak steps on it, at which point it immediately gives up.
Do you have any examples of one “well placed swipe” tearing open the abdominal wall (or otherwise inflicting serious damage)? ISTM that the animals’ thick skin does a pretty good job of protecting them in this regard, and predators seem to have a hard time ripping into even dead prey. (The perianal area seems to be the most vulnerable in this regard, in addition to being the least-defendable.)