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Interesting fact of the day: A chimpanzee is about 1.3x to 1.5x stronger than humans when it comes to pulling, jumping, and lifting with the legs in general. However when it comes to physical strength in terms of **pushing** humans are significantly stronger than chimps. Similarly while our legs arent as strong in terms of explosive power (jumping) we are many times better at endurance (using our leg muscles for longer). A human can cover a much farther distance on foot than a chimp could.
So the general factoids about chimps being stronger then us are very misleading. They are simply adapted to be stronger at the sorts of tasks they are suited for and weaker in others, while humans are stronger than a chimp in other ways.
#Science #STEM #Biology #zoology #monkey #chimp #ape #chimpanzee @Science
Depends largely on criteria. In a ~30 mile marathon run a extremely fit human would beat even a horse. However an ostrich would beat a human by covering that same distance in half the time.
That said I'm not sure how an ostritch would fair if we were talking, say, running from california to new york which would take many days to do. Make the distance long enough and maybe we could outperform an ostreich, I'm not really sure.
But point is aside from the ostreich there are very few, if any, animals that could keep up with us long distance. I am not sure about dogs but I kinda doubt even they could keep up with us over long enough distances. The reason the ostreich can do it is because its a bird and birds are extremely optimizes for weight, so even though they dont have some of our advantages like sweating that weight optimization makes up for it. But dogs being relatively heavy for their size and not being able to sweat would almost certainly make it impossible for them to keep up with us long term. According to the science our ability to sweat is ultimately why we can outcompete almost any other animal on the planet.
> I am not sure about dogs but I kinda doubt even they could keep up with us over long enough distances.
Probably varies a lot by breed. Huskies are something else but maybe that only applies in cold enough weather? For the most part an overly long day hike risks most dogs collapsing and refusing to move for 24+ hours. You literally have to carry them back out.
Yea I can only really speculate with dogs, but they just arent evolved for long distance running. Even in cold weather they are designed to retain heat with a nice thick fur and survive the cold. Other than panting they really cant do much to cool off. I suspect that while the cold might somewhat extend their running range int he end they would still overheat long before we would.
It really is two factors. One is the inability to sweat, the other is mechanical, humans have more "slow twitch" fibers than any animal, 3x the ratio of a chimp, and a mechanical advantage geared to favor distance over strength. So even if we put aside the inability to sweat their muscles were be very inefficient at long distance running and would tire out in no time. As you point out they can barely keep up with a fast paced hike over the course of a whole day, they certainly cant run at top speed for hours on end in even the best of conditions.
@roboneko Excellent point, I stand corrected, maybe they can keep up with us if they "train"
Yea humans can outrun the vast majority of mamals on foot in terms of long-distances. In fact there are a few modern humans who hunt this way, just just hunt deer with knives by running after them until the deer tires then they jump on it and slit their throat... amazing really, and sad.
@freemo @roboneko Yeah I think we do better than dogs in hot weather, dogs only do better in extremely cold weather, horses somewhere in between? I'm sure it depends on a lot of things. Hyenas I think also can run long distances, but most mammals can't.