What would be different If we walked on four these days?
In: Biology
Number 1 I think is that bipedal walking is super duper duper energy-efficient. Like, **humans are some of the best long-distance walkers on earth.**
This obviously helped a lot when we first left dense forest and started living in more open terrain, but we really came into our own with *Homo rectus* – it’s no coincidence that the first human ancestor to walk totally upright was also the one to explode out of Africa, reach as far as China, and prosper for like 1 million years. Forget big brains, our ability to travel for long distances while burning very little fuel is our first and best unique trait. (Okay, brains were a part of *H. erectus*’s success too, but you get my point).
*H. erectus* was a hunter, not just an eater of occasional meat. And they probably hunted the same way many modern hunter-gatherers in Africa do: they walked an animal to death. Walk up to an antelope, and it runs away. Follow it, it runs away. Follow it… it can always out*run* a human, but we can straight up follow it until it’s too exhausted to move. Walk up to it, spear in the heart.
A human can beat a horse in a marathon. I think we don’t talk about humans’ freakishly energy-efficient walking as much as we should
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