Largest Land Animal An Average Unarmed Human Can Beat MOTN
Feb 6, 2023 13:56:03 GMT
Hardcastle, Methane, and 1 more like this
Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2023 13:56:03 GMT
wermthewerm I found this question on Quora a while back and wouldn't mind the opinion of a cervid guy on what ungulate you'd go for or whether you'd choose an ungulate to begin with. This was my long-winded stab at an answer for dummies...
QUESTION : What is the largest land animal you think the average human could beat in a fight (bare hands only)?
ANSWER : Pronghorn
TL;DR
Within the areas I could think of I came out with the PRONGHORN, specifically a 130-lb male pronghorn, which is a large male. This is the largest land animal (where size = mass) I believe an average man could beat more-often-than-not.
DESCRIBING PRONGHORNS
Adult pronghorns weigh 75 - 143 lb; 75 - 106 lbs for females and 88 - 143 lbs for males. I’m finding the size of the pronghorn that our average man wins against difficult to pin down, but I’m thinking it would be in the male weight range between 88 - 143 lbs, and most likely on the higher side of that. So just to guesstimate a weight, I’m going with a large 130-lb adult-male pronghorn to lose to our average American young man 51/100 times.
If there are any better bogey opponents I don’t think they’d come from within the ungulate taxon. Gracile horned or antlered ungulate is the bogey taxon I fairly early on reduced it to, and after analyzing the bodily dimensions of prospects within the 75 - 150 lb weight range I decided on pronghorn as my lb-for-lb weakest 75 - 150 lb horned or antlered ungulate.
PRONGHORN TAXON
The pronghorn is not actually an antelope (bovidae family) or deer (cervidae family), but is the only surviving member of the antilocapridae family and one of three extant members within the superfamily “giraffoidea”.
The other two surviving members of the giraffoidea superfamily are the giraffe and opaki, which are the pronghorn’s closest living relatives. So while the pronghorn may be colloquially referred to as an “antelope” or “pronghorn antelope”, it is not actually an antelope at all. Not even a bovidae or cervidae.
GIRAFFE
OPAKI
BOGEY OPPONENT
Based on common sense and my general knowledge of interspecific conflict and humans, I decided I needed to assess horned and antlered ungulates in the 75 - 150 lb weight-range. For the average American young man that is unprepared for the fight I pretty much decided he’s still going to be lb-for-lb outmatched even against the lb-for-lb weakest ungulate bogey.
This probably would not be the case for an average man that had a lot of preparatory training for the fight, or a man with far-above average physical talents or attributes.
But for an unprepared average man I believe he’s still lb-for-lb outmatched against the best bogey opponent I can find within the entire land animal kingdom.
WHAT TO EXCLUDE (the elimination process)
For a basic start I’m looking for animals without dangerous mauls. This would certainly rule out all Carnivora. All carnivorans are OUT!
CONSTRICTORS
I don’t think I’d go with large constrictors. They may seem vulnerable due a limited mobility on their belly, however a large constrictor over 130-lbs will have the speed to latch onto and then fairly quickly begin the coiling process on a lone average man. If the constrictor was muzzled, the average man could avoid being latched onto by the snake’s mouth and potentially beat it. But the average unprepared man won’t have that ability with an unmuzzled constrictor; far quicker animals than Man have to be on their toes to avoid that scenario.
As I said earlier I’m not sure our average unprepared man can (more-often-than-not) beat anything that in mass equals or outweighs him. But I think he can get moderately close in the case of the most gracile horned ungulate, due to an awesome potential cheat code we have against horned or antlered animals.
The average unprepared man who is being attacked by a horned or antlered animal nearly always won’t use it and will try to escape. But in this case our man is his gamest version of himself and for whatever reason has accepted the match (not trying to flee) and is himself trying to assault/kill the opponent. He accepts potential injury and death as a possible consequence of his aggression. He’s not a man fleeing an aggressive attacking animal, but a man going after it, as is the animal going after him.
Ah why not
I think in this scenario, the man, operating at his full potential gameness, would instinctively recognize the cheat code (the horns/antlers) and use it. He’ll be fully utilizing legit hack wrestling form and will do so better and with more intent and aggression than we’d visualize from a surprised fleeing man that is just trying to escape the animal.
THE CHEAT CODE
Before I continue on with the Elimination Process, let's properly identify the cheat code. As you already know, the cheat code involves the horns. The man will grab the horns and head and twist/throw/wrestle the pronghorn to ground, rendering the beast on its side and keeping it down unable to rise.
HORNS VS ANTLERS
When I thought of the “cheat code”, I needed to further narrow things down within the horned and antlered ungulate taxon. It was at this point I learnt that bovidae (antelope) are potentially more gracile than cervidae (deer). Basically antelope are horned ungulates, while deer are anthered ungulates.
ANTLERS
So from here I started looking for the most lb-for-lb gracile horned animals in the 75 - 150 lb weight range, mainly focusing on antelope.
During my search I stumbled upon the pronghorn, which is also a horned ungulate like antelope, although not an antelope at all but closer to a giraffe. So I included the pronghorn in the assessment.
CONTENDERS
Long story short, I analyzed the bodily dimensions of antelope and pronghorn in the 75 - 150 lb weight range to find the lb-for-lb weakest and most vulnerable species. I did this by factoring the shoulder height and body length of the animal while accounting for weight, with lb-for-lb taller and longer animals being more lb-for-lb gracile.
These were my final lb-for-lb contenders, which I’ll list in their final correct order:
Pronghorn
Springbok
Thompson’s gazelle
Impala
RUNNING SPEED VS ROBUSTICITY
And I discovered an interesting thing, purely by accident. The above order is the order I decided on from lb-for-lb most-to-least gracile. And it just so turns out this is the exact order from fastest-to-slowest of the 4 fastest land animals in the world after the cheetah. So the more lb-for-lb gracile they are, the faster they are.
I assume there is a link between robusticity and the running speed of these prey animals. More proportionally gracile ungulates are lb-for-lb weaker and therefore need to run proportionally faster to survive predators.
While it may not look like it in the pictures, in bodily dimensions the pronghorn, being lb-for-lb taller at the shoulder and longer in body, should be the lb-for-lb most gracile of the 4 contenders. Therefore the pronghorn should be the lb-for-lb weakest of the contenders and thus the easiest to bring down and keep down.
KILL METHOD
I think what would happen during the match is the pronghorn charges into the man first. As the pronghorn charges into him he gets a hold of the horns and head and wrestles the beast to ground. And this is another reason I’ve chosen the pronghorn. As it’s lb-for-lb taller at the shoulder than the other contenders, it will not be able to rise as easily against the efforts of the man to keep it down. Give me some of that girrafoidea superfamily! The 130-lb pronghorn is going nowhere once it’s down.
From here I guess the man takes the horns and twists the head at such an angle it ends up breaking the neck spine. I’d say he bodily straddles the animal and then works the head from there.
DECIDING ON THE MAXIMUM WEIGHT
The reason I’ve topped the pronghorn off at 130-lbs is I don’t know if our average man would be able to wrestle bigger and stronger horned ungulate than that to ground more-often-than-not. “130-lbs” is a guesstimate, but I hope I’m accurate to within a fairly narrow weight range. Steer wrestlers/bulldoggers might be the best to confirm weight here.
Pronghorns only get up to about 150-lbs at maximum, so according to my guesstimate there aren’t many pronghorns that can beat our average man more-often-than-not.
A SAFER CONTENDER?
Here is a horned bovidae within the weight range I thought has good handles for horns.
MOUFLON (wild sheep), 110-lbs
As I said, this is a bovidae, same taxon as antelope. Those horns round on themselves and aren’t as much of an impaling or skewering risk for our man.
But looking at its shoulder height and body length, it’s still going to be a little lb-for-lb stronger than the pronghorn.
On the other hand it’s similar to cows in having a hard upper palate in the place of upper teeth, so it’s not that bad on the mauling front.
With the typical wild ungulate with both lower and upper teeth it might maul the grounded man as well, however in this case the mouflon has no upper teeth.
Where the mouflon would try to beat the man is on either ramming him to the ground then stomping him with front hooves, or rearing up on hind legs while running forwards and striking out at the man’s head with front hooves, like a person running at someone with a rock in either hand. As a result of this attack the man goes down and the front stomping ensues.
WHITE-TAIL DEER ATTACKS HUNTER
PRONGHORN OR MOUFLON?
If the average man is just being attacked and he’s trying only to flee/escape/survive instead of going on the offensive, I might then choose the mouflon before the pronghorn, as the mouflon has fewer weapons to work with. The pronghorn has the upper teeth as well as the pointy horns, which the mouflon lacks.
But in the case of a mutual deathmatch where the man needs to actually wrestle down and kill the animal, I think he’ll be able to wrestle down a heavier pronghorn than he could a mouflon.
ALTERNATIVE TAXON IN FLIGHTLESS BIRDS
One taxon I seriously considered before deciding on gracile ungulates is large flightless birds, as I feel this would also be something of a bogey opponent for Man, or as close to one as an average man could get.
EMU
It’s a dangerous opponent, but our average man should be able to wrestle down a 110-lb flightless bird if he got serious and went on the offensive. Flightless bird somewhere in the 90 - 120 lb range would probably be my next-best taxon after gracile horned ungulate.
LARGEST CARNIVORAN THE AVERAGE MAN BEATS
If I had to choose the largest carnivoran to lose to our average man more-often-than-not, it would probably be a female gray wolf of about 80-lbs.
It’s not that this gray wolf is necessarily the least formidable 80-lb carnivoran in a general interspecific conflict context. It’s that out of all carnivorans in the required weight range, primates in general happen to match up considerably better against canids than they do against cats and bears.
SNOW LEOPARD
SUN BEAR
PRIMATE’S EDGE
Wild primates are poor lb-for-lb matches for cats and bears, but fair matches for canids, even though some robust canids can beat some gracile cat species of equal weight.
Wild primates are something of a “bogey opponent” to canids, and this wild primate bogey factor still extends, to a degree, to Man if he is willing to grapple the canid.
The average man is still well-outmatched lb-for-lb against canids, but a better lb-for-lb match than against cats and bears.
An average man has the capability of seizing the canid’s head/neck skin to control the head and prevent it from biting him. From there he could perhaps use his superior weight to sprawl on top and employ a chokehold.
Whether our average man would employ all this without thinking prep. time is admittedly doubtful. But I’m still accounting for him not getting it exactly right by quoting an “80-lb” wolf. And he still loses 49/100 times as per The Rules.
With a couple of hours of tactical coaching I might give him the win 51/100 times against a 100-lb female gray wolf. Know-how on how to employ ju-jitsu for canids will make a big difference in what the man is capable of in this fight.
QUESTION : What is the largest land animal you think the average human could beat in a fight (bare hands only)?
ANSWER : Pronghorn
TL;DR
Within the areas I could think of I came out with the PRONGHORN, specifically a 130-lb male pronghorn, which is a large male. This is the largest land animal (where size = mass) I believe an average man could beat more-often-than-not.
DESCRIBING PRONGHORNS
Adult pronghorns weigh 75 - 143 lb; 75 - 106 lbs for females and 88 - 143 lbs for males. I’m finding the size of the pronghorn that our average man wins against difficult to pin down, but I’m thinking it would be in the male weight range between 88 - 143 lbs, and most likely on the higher side of that. So just to guesstimate a weight, I’m going with a large 130-lb adult-male pronghorn to lose to our average American young man 51/100 times.
If there are any better bogey opponents I don’t think they’d come from within the ungulate taxon. Gracile horned or antlered ungulate is the bogey taxon I fairly early on reduced it to, and after analyzing the bodily dimensions of prospects within the 75 - 150 lb weight range I decided on pronghorn as my lb-for-lb weakest 75 - 150 lb horned or antlered ungulate.
PRONGHORN TAXON
The pronghorn is not actually an antelope (bovidae family) or deer (cervidae family), but is the only surviving member of the antilocapridae family and one of three extant members within the superfamily “giraffoidea”.
The other two surviving members of the giraffoidea superfamily are the giraffe and opaki, which are the pronghorn’s closest living relatives. So while the pronghorn may be colloquially referred to as an “antelope” or “pronghorn antelope”, it is not actually an antelope at all. Not even a bovidae or cervidae.
GIRAFFE
OPAKI
BOGEY OPPONENT
Based on common sense and my general knowledge of interspecific conflict and humans, I decided I needed to assess horned and antlered ungulates in the 75 - 150 lb weight-range. For the average American young man that is unprepared for the fight I pretty much decided he’s still going to be lb-for-lb outmatched even against the lb-for-lb weakest ungulate bogey.
This probably would not be the case for an average man that had a lot of preparatory training for the fight, or a man with far-above average physical talents or attributes.
But for an unprepared average man I believe he’s still lb-for-lb outmatched against the best bogey opponent I can find within the entire land animal kingdom.
WHAT TO EXCLUDE (the elimination process)
For a basic start I’m looking for animals without dangerous mauls. This would certainly rule out all Carnivora. All carnivorans are OUT!
CONSTRICTORS
I don’t think I’d go with large constrictors. They may seem vulnerable due a limited mobility on their belly, however a large constrictor over 130-lbs will have the speed to latch onto and then fairly quickly begin the coiling process on a lone average man. If the constrictor was muzzled, the average man could avoid being latched onto by the snake’s mouth and potentially beat it. But the average unprepared man won’t have that ability with an unmuzzled constrictor; far quicker animals than Man have to be on their toes to avoid that scenario.
As I said earlier I’m not sure our average unprepared man can (more-often-than-not) beat anything that in mass equals or outweighs him. But I think he can get moderately close in the case of the most gracile horned ungulate, due to an awesome potential cheat code we have against horned or antlered animals.
The average unprepared man who is being attacked by a horned or antlered animal nearly always won’t use it and will try to escape. But in this case our man is his gamest version of himself and for whatever reason has accepted the match (not trying to flee) and is himself trying to assault/kill the opponent. He accepts potential injury and death as a possible consequence of his aggression. He’s not a man fleeing an aggressive attacking animal, but a man going after it, as is the animal going after him.
Ah why not
I think in this scenario, the man, operating at his full potential gameness, would instinctively recognize the cheat code (the horns/antlers) and use it. He’ll be fully utilizing legit hack wrestling form and will do so better and with more intent and aggression than we’d visualize from a surprised fleeing man that is just trying to escape the animal.
THE CHEAT CODE
Before I continue on with the Elimination Process, let's properly identify the cheat code. As you already know, the cheat code involves the horns. The man will grab the horns and head and twist/throw/wrestle the pronghorn to ground, rendering the beast on its side and keeping it down unable to rise.
HORNS VS ANTLERS
When I thought of the “cheat code”, I needed to further narrow things down within the horned and antlered ungulate taxon. It was at this point I learnt that bovidae (antelope) are potentially more gracile than cervidae (deer). Basically antelope are horned ungulates, while deer are anthered ungulates.
ANTLERS
So from here I started looking for the most lb-for-lb gracile horned animals in the 75 - 150 lb weight range, mainly focusing on antelope.
During my search I stumbled upon the pronghorn, which is also a horned ungulate like antelope, although not an antelope at all but closer to a giraffe. So I included the pronghorn in the assessment.
CONTENDERS
Long story short, I analyzed the bodily dimensions of antelope and pronghorn in the 75 - 150 lb weight range to find the lb-for-lb weakest and most vulnerable species. I did this by factoring the shoulder height and body length of the animal while accounting for weight, with lb-for-lb taller and longer animals being more lb-for-lb gracile.
These were my final lb-for-lb contenders, which I’ll list in their final correct order:
Pronghorn
Springbok
Thompson’s gazelle
Impala
RUNNING SPEED VS ROBUSTICITY
And I discovered an interesting thing, purely by accident. The above order is the order I decided on from lb-for-lb most-to-least gracile. And it just so turns out this is the exact order from fastest-to-slowest of the 4 fastest land animals in the world after the cheetah. So the more lb-for-lb gracile they are, the faster they are.
I assume there is a link between robusticity and the running speed of these prey animals. More proportionally gracile ungulates are lb-for-lb weaker and therefore need to run proportionally faster to survive predators.
While it may not look like it in the pictures, in bodily dimensions the pronghorn, being lb-for-lb taller at the shoulder and longer in body, should be the lb-for-lb most gracile of the 4 contenders. Therefore the pronghorn should be the lb-for-lb weakest of the contenders and thus the easiest to bring down and keep down.
KILL METHOD
I think what would happen during the match is the pronghorn charges into the man first. As the pronghorn charges into him he gets a hold of the horns and head and wrestles the beast to ground. And this is another reason I’ve chosen the pronghorn. As it’s lb-for-lb taller at the shoulder than the other contenders, it will not be able to rise as easily against the efforts of the man to keep it down. Give me some of that girrafoidea superfamily! The 130-lb pronghorn is going nowhere once it’s down.
From here I guess the man takes the horns and twists the head at such an angle it ends up breaking the neck spine. I’d say he bodily straddles the animal and then works the head from there.
DECIDING ON THE MAXIMUM WEIGHT
The reason I’ve topped the pronghorn off at 130-lbs is I don’t know if our average man would be able to wrestle bigger and stronger horned ungulate than that to ground more-often-than-not. “130-lbs” is a guesstimate, but I hope I’m accurate to within a fairly narrow weight range. Steer wrestlers/bulldoggers might be the best to confirm weight here.
Pronghorns only get up to about 150-lbs at maximum, so according to my guesstimate there aren’t many pronghorns that can beat our average man more-often-than-not.
A SAFER CONTENDER?
Here is a horned bovidae within the weight range I thought has good handles for horns.
MOUFLON (wild sheep), 110-lbs
As I said, this is a bovidae, same taxon as antelope. Those horns round on themselves and aren’t as much of an impaling or skewering risk for our man.
But looking at its shoulder height and body length, it’s still going to be a little lb-for-lb stronger than the pronghorn.
On the other hand it’s similar to cows in having a hard upper palate in the place of upper teeth, so it’s not that bad on the mauling front.
With the typical wild ungulate with both lower and upper teeth it might maul the grounded man as well, however in this case the mouflon has no upper teeth.
Where the mouflon would try to beat the man is on either ramming him to the ground then stomping him with front hooves, or rearing up on hind legs while running forwards and striking out at the man’s head with front hooves, like a person running at someone with a rock in either hand. As a result of this attack the man goes down and the front stomping ensues.
WHITE-TAIL DEER ATTACKS HUNTER
PRONGHORN OR MOUFLON?
If the average man is just being attacked and he’s trying only to flee/escape/survive instead of going on the offensive, I might then choose the mouflon before the pronghorn, as the mouflon has fewer weapons to work with. The pronghorn has the upper teeth as well as the pointy horns, which the mouflon lacks.
But in the case of a mutual deathmatch where the man needs to actually wrestle down and kill the animal, I think he’ll be able to wrestle down a heavier pronghorn than he could a mouflon.
ALTERNATIVE TAXON IN FLIGHTLESS BIRDS
One taxon I seriously considered before deciding on gracile ungulates is large flightless birds, as I feel this would also be something of a bogey opponent for Man, or as close to one as an average man could get.
EMU
It’s a dangerous opponent, but our average man should be able to wrestle down a 110-lb flightless bird if he got serious and went on the offensive. Flightless bird somewhere in the 90 - 120 lb range would probably be my next-best taxon after gracile horned ungulate.
LARGEST CARNIVORAN THE AVERAGE MAN BEATS
If I had to choose the largest carnivoran to lose to our average man more-often-than-not, it would probably be a female gray wolf of about 80-lbs.
It’s not that this gray wolf is necessarily the least formidable 80-lb carnivoran in a general interspecific conflict context. It’s that out of all carnivorans in the required weight range, primates in general happen to match up considerably better against canids than they do against cats and bears.
SNOW LEOPARD
SUN BEAR
PRIMATE’S EDGE
Wild primates are poor lb-for-lb matches for cats and bears, but fair matches for canids, even though some robust canids can beat some gracile cat species of equal weight.
Wild primates are something of a “bogey opponent” to canids, and this wild primate bogey factor still extends, to a degree, to Man if he is willing to grapple the canid.
The average man is still well-outmatched lb-for-lb against canids, but a better lb-for-lb match than against cats and bears.
An average man has the capability of seizing the canid’s head/neck skin to control the head and prevent it from biting him. From there he could perhaps use his superior weight to sprawl on top and employ a chokehold.
Whether our average man would employ all this without thinking prep. time is admittedly doubtful. But I’m still accounting for him not getting it exactly right by quoting an “80-lb” wolf. And he still loses 49/100 times as per The Rules.
With a couple of hours of tactical coaching I might give him the win 51/100 times against a 100-lb female gray wolf. Know-how on how to employ ju-jitsu for canids will make a big difference in what the man is capable of in this fight.
