Soldato
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The gloves are off now!
Rumble in the jungle: what animals would win in a fight?
- Thread starter Somnambulist
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The gloves are off now!
Assuming we're talking a fight to the death, a lot of these animals would be difficult to overcome as an unarmed average human, as without being armed we are pretty limited in our ability to dish out a lethal amount of damage - beyond strangling or using fists/elbows/feet/knees to cause blunt impacts, you don't have many options.
If we're talking points though, I reckon I might have half a chance to out-jab an elephant for three rounds and grind out a decision win
If we're talking points though, I reckon I might have half a chance to out-jab an elephant for three rounds and grind out a decision win
Soldato
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I'd swing a cobra round by its tail until ded.
If chimps are getting added they can go right on the nope list. Above elephants.
Humans have long legs and much better leg muscles than a chimp. But a chimp has its specialised muscles and bones in long arms and grip so once it jumps on, the advantages of being a human are useless. Then it's going to gnaw your face, fingers and genitals off with its fangs. Sure they have similar mass to a human but it's all in their arms and grip which makes them freakishly strong by human standards.
What you can do is use those human legs for what they're good for and run like a there's a chimp after you. Stuff they kill gets tortured to death.
Humans have long legs and much better leg muscles than a chimp. But a chimp has its specialised muscles and bones in long arms and grip so once it jumps on, the advantages of being a human are useless. Then it's going to gnaw your face, fingers and genitals off with its fangs. Sure they have similar mass to a human but it's all in their arms and grip which makes them freakishly strong by human standards.
What you can do is use those human legs for what they're good for and run like a there's a chimp after you. Stuff they kill gets tortured to death.
f we're talking points though, I reckon I might have half a chance to out-jab an elephant for three rounds and grind out a decision win
Soldato
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The biggest question in this thread:
How will SexyGreyFox fare against a sexy grey fox?
How will SexyGreyFox fare against a sexy grey fox?
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That got me thinking. Without weapons, I think the only vulnerable parts of an elephant within reach would be its trunk and genitals. Trunk...no. You could cause it pain, but that would be all. And you'd be in front of it, so it could kill you simply by walking forwards. Or pushing a tusk through you. Or picking you up with its trunk and splattering you against the ground, a tree or whatever. Or clubbing you to death with its trunk because your grip would not be strong enough to stop it. Genitals...no. Even if you could get close enough, which is unlikely, you couldn't kill it that way. You could hurt it and then it would stop you. By killing you.
Anywhere else and it'll be like you suggested. Unless the elephant got angry before then and got rid of you because you'd managed to be an irritation.
Some people put fixed bar attached to a force meter in with some chimps. The chimps investigated it and some of them pulled on it. One of them, a small adult female weighing about 8st, did so while angry and so probably put close to full effort into it. When the device was in a different place, away from the chimps, a heavily muscled man weighing about 15st had a full effort go at it. His best effort was beaten by that small chimp.
Ludicrous strength, fangs and primal combat reflexes not slowed by thought. Anyone who thinks they could kill an adult chimp in a unarmed fight is quite simply deluded.
I think the overall ratings in the study linked to by the OP are reasonable - humans above geese but below everything else on the list. Most of the ratings were reasonable. I suspect that the few people who claimed to think they could beat the higher end animals in a fight were drunk and/or joking. Or insane. No sane, sober person could seriously think they could beat a grizzly bear in an unarmed fight.
I've tussled slightly seriously with a medium sized dog, to defend my own dog. That wasn't a serious fight, let alone a fight to the death. It was a dominance contest, essentially some slightly rough wrestling to determine pecking order. But that was enough to make me realise I'd be most unlikely to win a serious fight. Dogs are quick and strong and, most importantly, are predators. Their instincts are different to ours. That matters a lot in a fight. Plus, of course, they have hugely superior biting ability. So rat, house cat and goose. Maybe medium sized dog if I really was fighting for my life. Maybe. Eagle would be a matter of which one. Some eagles are quite small. Some are...not.
Although limiting it to unarmed is probably unrealistic and definitely unfair. Humans are naturally tool users and can improvise a weapon from almost anything. If it came down to it, you'd grab a length of wood or a stone or anything that came to hand.
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Exactly the opposite kind of people to those who said they'd lose to a rat.
In all seriousness you'd probably have a reasonable chance against an elephant, as Humans are a little more clever (at least most of us) so should beable to exploit their issues with getting stuck in or behind things they can't trample. Mud slides are a death trap to an elephant, apparently.
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There's a certain irony I think about occasionally when I train or watch people much stronger than me compete in strength sports or athletics - we humans can get incredibly jacked and lift what seem like huge weights relative to our bodyweight, but out in the wild nearly everything bigger than us (and some quite a lot smaller than us) who just go about their business trying to exist and don't have the luxury of food on tap and a gym are stronger, have greater gripping/biting force, can out-run/climb us, typically have keener senses and don't need clothes to survive in harsher climates.
Intelligence came at a cost it seems, although it's not something you think about much when your species has largely walled off tooth'n'claw nature and in many places (like here) eliminated anything that would happily eat you given the chance.
Intelligence came at a cost it seems, although it's not something you think about much when your species has largely walled off tooth'n'claw nature and in many places (like here) eliminated anything that would happily eat you given the chance.
anyone who thinks they can take an Eagle on without a gun or weapon is mental. An Eagle would literally tear you a new one before you had time to even wind up a falcon punch.
Punching an elephant in the nuts is probably going to be like punching a couple of cannon balls. I would imagine his nuts would do more damage to your hand. An elephants testicles weigh over 5kg and it's nut sack is over 2 inches thick which is then stashed away behind 12 inches of muscle and a shed load of fat. Even if you were wearing dewalt safety boots, you would probably break your ankle booting those balls. Plus what if it's a female ?
Punching an elephant in the nuts is probably going to be like punching a couple of cannon balls. I would imagine his nuts would do more damage to your hand. An elephants testicles weigh over 5kg and it's nut sack is over 2 inches thick which is then stashed away behind 12 inches of muscle and a shed load of fat. Even if you were wearing dewalt safety boots, you would probably break your ankle booting those balls. Plus what if it's a female ?
Soldato
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That's where you're wrong, if cartoons from back when I was a kid taught me anything it's that tying a knot in an elephant's trunk is the easiest way to gain the upper hand. Then you deploy the mouse, and simply watch as the elephant runs headfirst into a tree and gives itself such a concussion that gets a circle of birds flying around it's head. It's then, and only then, that you go in for the testicular coup de grâce.
Same as if you get into a fight with a coyote, you just carry on with your business and let it blow itself up with explosives from ACME Co.
Errr, are you absolutely certain about that? I would imagine what would happen is that it would surprise you with its speed, then either smash you under its 5 ton weight, or grab you with its remarkably strong trunk and smash you beneath its feet. Or it could just turn around and run away far faster than you could.
Of course, it could also tear a massive branch off a tree and smash you to death with it. Generally, you end up smashed...
What if it is? I didn't specify a sex. I also didn't claim that an unarmed human could do anything much to an elephant that way.
"You could cause it pain, but that would be all".
There's another very important difference, related to both intelligence and the physical adaptations that made humans less physically capable in unarmed combat than other similarly sized primates. Tool use. A human with a weapon (even a weapon as simple as a spear or even just a club) and skill in using it is more dangerous than many animals that would otherwise easily kill a human.
You might be able to fool an elephant into backing down and win the fight that way. Maybe. If you can fool the elephant into believing you're dangerous and if the elephant doesn't have a pressing reason to fight you, it might well back down. Elephants, like most animals, do a risk/benefit analysis before fighting. I wouldn't care to have to try it, but it's probably your best chance in some circumstances.
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In a fair fight the elephant wins every time for sure, that's why humans don't fight fare. For sure the other similar megafauna such as Mammoths learnt that the hard way.
What is fairness in this context? It could be argued that the animal being allow to use their strengths (fangs, claws, poison, armour, strength, whatever) while the human is forbidden to use their strengths (tool use, intelligent use of environment, making traps, fighting in groups, etc) is unfair.
For example, one way in which humans are more capable than any other animal is throwing things. At first glance it might look like some other primates would be better at throwing things. More upper body strength, longer arms, that sort of thing. But their physiology is wrong for throwing. Their grip's wrong, their musculature is wrong, their balance is wrong, their brain is wrong. Humans spank other animals in both force and accuracy when throwing and that's without tools. But tool use is part of humanity. Homo sapiens has been using tools for the entirety of the species existence. Earlier homo species used tools too. So the appropriate comparison would be a human using a sling or an atlatl at least.
I'd also argue that fairness is for contests of sport or honour and not for serious fights. If I'm fighting for my life, fairness is not even going to be on my list of priorities let alone at the top of it.