I mean, if animals engage in pretend fights and other forms of play, it seems that they can on some level grasp the idea of practicing or doing something for fun.
wtf
Submitted 2 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/98f7bf70-084c-47fd-b64b-4484e3340f9b.jpeg
Comments
hsr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
snootchiebootchies@lemmynsfw.com 1 month ago
Run…for FUN? What the hell kind of fun is that?
hsr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
pennomi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Dogs do love a good jog though. Give that good boi a bit of kibble and then see how he feels.
iheartneopets@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I mean, the ability to run long distances without tiring is kind of what makes humans an apex predator. We can out-endurance just about every other creature. Most ancient human hunting techniques involved just wounding an animal, and then literally chasing it until it got too tired to keep going.
Wolves are very similar, which is what made us such natural hunting companions. The co-evolution of humans and dogs is an extremely interesting rabbit hole, if anyone is looking for one.
All that to say, the wolf would understand the need to run more than just about any other animal. A bear would work better here. A wolf would just see us running and think ‘game recognizes game’, just like they already did eons ago :3
makyo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
TheBeege@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I love this. Thank you
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
involved just wounding an animal
not even wounding. Just persistent tracking and following. Most prey animals can run away quickly, but need lots of rest.
Humans can just keep going. And going. And going. Until the prey just is too exhausted to run.
user224@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Got it.
I am prey.
raltoid@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s why the trope of an enemy that never stops/is endless is so terrifying, and thus common in media.
iheartneopets@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Yes, very true! I almost added that when writing my comment, but didn’t want to blather on too long in a comment about a meme haha
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 2 months ago
I guess the Energizer Bunny was an evolution that came about, due to humanity’s hunting style…
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 months ago
No, no I didn’t need that rabbit hole…
(spends the next hour reading about it)
Spacehooks@reddthat.com 2 months ago
That how traditional zombies hunt ppl. Slow and inevitable.
TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So this is pretty neat:
science.org/…/born-run-early-endurance-running--m…
Humans aren’t good at running fast, but we are good at running for a long time for long distances, so it’s thought that we would just run after things until they got tired.
TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Back in my reddit days I wrote a long comment about the fact that zombies are scary because they are the ultimate endurance hunters.
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Zombies aren’t scary. They’re popular movie monsters because, while looking vaguely human, they’re sufficiently “othered” that you can kill them without remorse (thus acting as a convenient stand-in for other groups that the audience wishes they could do that to) and because they represent an apocalypse that kills most of the people but leaves the stuff behind, meaning that you don’t have to deal with society anymore but you’ll still easily have a roof over your head and food on your table (albeit mostly canned food.)
Klear@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I mean, them being walking corpses might also have something to do with it…
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
I remember reading that
TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That is scarier to me than the fast zombies.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Funny enough there is another animal I know that can sweat, have more endurance than humans, and much faster than humans. Horses.
Imagine you fear getting caught by a horse or a human and then suddenly a human riding a horse shows up.
sprite0@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
humans can beat a horse in a marathon!
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Horses sweat? Huh.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
It’s a consequence of bipedalism, less energy consumption to run but also slower
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
It’s a few things that stem from bipedalism:
- We can run and breathe entirely separately. Most quadrupeds lack the ability to run and take breaths independently of the pace of each step. Watching cheetahs sprint, for example, show that they have no choice but to exhale every time their legs come together and inhale every time their legs push apart.
- Running on our hind legs only frees up our hands to be able to use tools and weapons, maybe even water containers for drinking on the go.
- We can see further by standing up, and can make tactical decisions based on terrain, while still running pretty much full speed.
Combined with our unusual ability to cool ourselves by sweating, this gives us an advantage over pretty much any animal in the heat. Wolves and horses can still outrun humans in the cold, but lack the cooling mechanisms to maintain pace in the same heat that we can.
JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yea but also tools
We don’t have to stop for water, we can bring some
Same for food
Our preys didn’t have such luck
T156@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Other animals get zoomies too.
Johandea@feddit.nu 2 months ago
Jogging from the perspective of non-human animals
FTFY
GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
🤓☝️
Gsus4@mander.xyz 2 months ago
Yeah, some humans also wonder why jogging is a thing.
eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Jogging is practice for how humans killed pretty much all the megafauna in the world: exhaustion hunting.
scytale@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
“I don’t know why they’re running, but let’s chase them!”
474D@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Whoever made this has never met a dog
Jordan117@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeah, this post shows a tragic lack of familiarity with the concept of zoomies.
nucleative@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So apex that most of us outsource our hunting and farming, which makes us fat and slow unless we purposefully burn energy for no other purpose than to burn it.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
I mean yes, literally… We were able to completely supplant the natural order.
DarthFrodo@lemmy.world 1 month ago
So apex that even hunters need firearms because they’re too fat and slow to hunt without them nowadays, and unable to improvise and use self made weapons like the og hunters did.
I guess people that drive a forklift are “apex powerlifters” too.
Bluewing@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Smart apex hunters always conserve as much energy as they can during a hunt. Because you don’t know when your next meal might show up. And firearms do make hunting a more sure thing. Hunting game, of any kind, is high risk-- higher reward effort. Most hunters go home empty handed or with little to show for the effort. But, if you do get it right, the effort can be handsomely rewarded.
So if you are smart enough to develop ranged weapons, you eagerly use them to hunt supper.
Mothra@mander.xyz 2 months ago
I know it’s a joke. But would a wolf consider a human an apex predator? What about bears? Do these animals fear humans? I can’t say I’m familiar with them. I figured they wouldn’t, in most circumstances. I would think their default stance towards us is that we’re their prey
Saleh@feddit.org 2 months ago
We are certainly not their prey and without modern urban sprawl forcing animals into urbanized areas they would avoid humans as much as possible and this has been true for thousands of years.
Humans are the ones wielding fire after all.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The bears and coyotes around here hide from me! Even if I try and creep on 'em, they still usually sense me and run.
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
“ah shit, it’s that weird human again. Better hide or it will get awkward”
leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 2 months ago
Most animals know humans are too much trouble to mess with.
Sure, you can kill one human. But next thing you know your whole species has gone extinct, or worse, has been domesticated into pocket yappy dogs that can’t breathe properly.
In places where we’ve been around long enough staying away from humans has practically been bred into every surviving predator’s instincts by now (which is what makes polar bears so terrifying, they’re about the only dangerous predator that doesn’t have this instinct yet, and probably never will, now that murdering whole species has become a bit of a bad look); anything that considered us prey and didn’t learn not to simply doesn’t exist anymore.
Wolves in particular (in the few places where they survive) definitely know not to mess with us, except maybe in the frozen depths of Canada, and so do most bears (again, with possible exceptions in the least populated bits of North America) except polar ones.
Collatz_problem@hexbear.net 2 months ago
Bears usually avoid humans, unless very hungry, because those who didn’t avoid us, didn’t tend to live very long.
Bluewing@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Large predators have a species memory that tells them in general messing with a human scent can easily lead to a bad day for you. Because we have spent millennia hunting and killing them. So they have learned to avoid us directly.
This does not mean that that in certain instances, such as starvation or if they feel cornered and trapped, that you can’t get hurt by them. So when I go out into the forest, and where I live we have black bears, wolves, and now permanent cougars-- and not the ones you might find in a bar on Friday nights either --the only one of those three I find a bit dicey to be around is the cougars. Bears and wolves really don’t like people and make themselves very scarce very fast once they know you are there if there is an open escape route they can take.
Big cats, on the other hand don’t appear to be the brightest bulbs in the box. And tend to be more of an issue for humans mucking about in the wilds where the cats are found. When I do venture out into areas that I have seen sign or even worse, spotted a cat, I do tend to carry a pistol for self defense in those areas. I’ve not needed to use it and very much hope not to ever need it. But being ‘forearmed is to to be forewarned’ so to speak.
troyunrau@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
One time, I was in the arctic doing some research. On a snowmobile, in winter, we crest a hill and see a couple of wolves pigging out on a caribou. I’m riding in the toboggan, and I start telling at the driver: “go go go!” They proceeded to chase our snowmobile for like a mile, with no hope at all of catching us, but running anyway. Like dogs chasing tires, I think they had no choice. Instincts are strong.
peteyestee@feddit.org 2 months ago
I say this to myself when I see people jogging and I really just want to yell “what are you running from!?”
TheFrirish@jlai.lu 2 months ago
They’re running from health problems
match@pawb.social 2 months ago
And other problems
Unbecredible@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Only to be tackled by a car crash at 47 yo.
noredcandy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 2 months ago
‘Looking like you fatass’
icelimit@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
If an apex predator is running, maybe keep up.
notarobot@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Let’s say it’s part of a mating ritual. I know this is not true, but I believe it gets the point across.
God_Is_Love@reddthat.com 2 months ago
I cannot stop laughing 😂
Personally I think humans run because they are a species with enough cognitive abilities to be masochists
dingus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
As someone who started running last year because it’s supposedly “good for you”, I’m inclined to agree lol
TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 2 months ago
They are running from existential dread.
petersr@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So we are the prey?
Syltti@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Always have been.
KurtVonnegut@mander.xyz 2 months ago
Conserving energy is not really our thing.
notabot@piefed.social 2 months ago
The thing is, humans are astonishingly good at conserving energy when running. We can literally run prey to death by just keeping on going when most animals run out of energy.
Spacehooks@reddthat.com 2 months ago
Sweat offers cooling bonuses.
Something about being upright too but I don’t recall.
ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
If I need more energy I’ll just set something on fire
Oisteink@feddit.nl 2 months ago
They are animals and cant understand cause and effect. With nothing to chase or hunt you expire as a blob of fat
DaddleDew@lemmy.world 2 months ago
“He’s running so slow…”
1 hour later
“How can he still be running like that?”