Throughout history an average wild animal has had the ability to kill an average human being so how did we as a species not only survive but ended up on the top of the food chain?
In: Biology
Society and sticks.
We had strong social groups with the ability to communicate and coordinate. We also found/made pointy sticks and used them in lieu of teeth or claws.
Finally, we are bipedal with special lungs that allow us to sustain ordinary breathing rhythm while running. This makes us endurance runners. Prey animals might have been faster than our savanna ancestors in a sprint, but we didn’t care; we just kept jogging behind in a group, never slowing down, carrying our pointy sticks and communicating with each other.
Imagine what a nightmare it must have been for a prey animal. You’re just hanging out with your herd, minding your own business, when suddenly you spy predators! The herd breaks into a gallop, but somehow the multiple predators appear to be acting as if with a single mind, and they move independently to cut you off from the rest of the herd. You resolutely break into a sprint away from the herd, confident that your speed will save you. Somehow, the predators seem to know exactly what direction you are moving in, and even the ones that did not see where you went join the rest of the group and follow you. You sprint again, this time, using all of your reserves to put as much distance down as possible. You stop, winded, with the predators nowhere in sight. Then, a few minutes later, one of them appears in the distance…then the rest follow. Again and again, you outpace them, and every time they appear out of nowhere, never tired, always loping after you in a group. They track you until you are too tired to move, and even if you try to stand and fight, they have the power to make inanimate objects rise off the ground and fly through the air and do their bidding. Absolute madness.
We have some other good abilities as well. Thanks to intelligence and social groups, we are able to treat and heal from wounds that would doom most other animals. We are omnivores who are individually not very meaty, which makes us a poor choice of prey to other apex predators. Hunting us takes just as much effort as hunting, a wildebeest, but just one of us won’t be enough to feed the entire pride. And there, again, you have to contend with pointy sticks. Once we conquered fire, we were able to cook our food, which meant much less time spent chewing/digesting and much more time spent hunting and gathering and communicating and making tools.
Early hominids were such great apex predators that we had covered Africa even before modern humans emerged. There were many many different hominid species, all evolving at once in different areas, which is a great way to maximize the effect of natural selection.
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