With or without tools? Tools change the equation big time. The ability of humans (and other monkeys) to throw stuff is probably the closest thing to fucking bullshit sorcery the animal kingdom has ever seen. Even just being able to throw a kinda heavy rock competently can massively level the playing field between a person and a mid-size predator (obviously bears won’t give two shits).
I could totally take a T-Rex, and if you don’t believe me bring one here and I’ll fight it!
We’ll spare no expense!
Maybe a sloth.
We have worked with hundreds of sloths over the years, (both wild and human-reared) and they can all inflict serious injuries if scared or irritated. We have seen a sloth bite through a human hand leaving a hole big enough that you could look through.
In addition to their seriously sharp teeth, sloths are astonishingly strong. Due to their specialized muscle structure, their muscles are pound for pound stronger than a human’s. Despite their small size, sloths are 3x stronger than the average person. Meaning that if you are up against an angry sloth who wants to bite you, chances are the sloth will be the winner of that wrestling match.
When they reach independence (at the age of about 18 months), even the most gentle of hand-reared sloths just do not want to be handled any longer.
Damn.
one of my favourite graphs ever dunno if it’s real but eh it’s funny
love the difference on geese
personally I’d say rat house cat and medium dog are my definite I’d win not even that difficult maybe maybe the big dog but I dunno the dog could win any of the others are a hard no I’d die
Americans are also some of the loudest, over-confident, self-absorbed, entitled people on the planet. Of course they believe they can take on any animal.
My apologies go out to the dozen other Americans who are cool.
1/3 of British people:
Have Americans even seen what a goose does?
You’d have a hand around its neck, doing twirls for a shotput throw, and yeah, the goose goes like twenty-five meters back into the lake, and that’s fine.
But with a sinking realization as the goose fucks off, it stole your wallet.
There is a family legend about an amorous goose. I don’t know it well enough to tell it properly though, I wasn’t there when it happened. But I do not understand the Statesian confidence in goose warfare.
Our confidence comes from experience. Canada has been sending their worst at us for generations. We fight geese as children.
Call 'em what they are, Cobra Chickens
“But the horse gets it too” really sends it for me.
Don’t think horses can carry HIV. PreP is not necessary
Ok Mr. Hands…
Any dude who thinks he can beat a horse is just so wrong. I don’t think anything bigger than a bug is possible. I would feel too bad lol
If you get prep time surely its easy? What is the horse going to do, I can just make a few spears and set a stick on fire to wave in its face to scare it.
Imagine doing it. Stabbing a weapon into the panicking animal while trying to not get kicked. The blood from the wound makes the weapon slippery and hard to hold…
Could you really? You make it sound so easy, like the people who have not taken a life tend to.
Depends what counts as winning. If leaving the arena counts as forfeit then I reckon I could beat a horse cus I don’t think a horse has any desire to be there
Mom raised abandoned mountain lion cubs. Let’s just say I now have no illusions as to my skill fighting an angry possum.
tl;dr: A 90lb. cat with eat your fucking lunch. Even without claws.
I could definitely beat the piss out of a salmon, especially if we were brawling out-of-water. A sheep too. I might get a little hurt, but I think I’d be evenly matched with an angry sheep.
Nah, a sheep would kick my ass. A salmon too probably.
Unarmed or armed?
A horse with arms is much more dangerous. No way I could take it.
They’re called Centaurs you bigoted fuck.
I think for me the line is somewhere between big dog and wolf lmao
I would say unarmed unprepared combat I could do a coyote. I would be super fucked up but I think I could take one.
See the problem I have with this is that sure, you could take a coyote one-on-one. When is that situation going to happen though? Coyotes typically hunt in duos at minimum. Maybe you’re able to get your hands around the first, but you’re not going to be able to finish the fight before the second attacks from your blind spot.
A lot of people judge their ability to win in a fight based on their 1v1 matchup, when realistically you should base it on how many you can expect to face at oncem
I mean this whole thought experiment is based on hypotheticals in the first place. I never go anywhere completely unarmed and with my knife that I always carry I could absolutely kill many coyotes.
Many people also conceal carry which would probably change the matchup to something much larger like a wild cat. I know handgun calibers generally only serve to piss off large game like bears and moose so it would probably top out somewhere around a mountain lion if we are allowing what some of us normally daily carry.
Their bites aren’t as bad as you might think. They can fuck you up, but they rely on pretty quick attacks, so the risk is more in repeated strikes(from what we’ve seen with the limited coyote attacks that happen).
Don’t recommend going for a straight-on brawl, but if you can get behind one, you might have a chance. Bonus points, they’re naturally pretty disinclined to fight a human unless given no other options, so you might be able to slip behind at a point?
I heard of a grandma taking a bobcat once, so maybe that?
The biggest problem is that most animals will never fight to the death. I could take multiple coyotes if I just need to scare them off. I could take a bear or mountain lion if all I need to do is not die.
Checkmate liberals! 😁
I could take a bear
If the bear actively wanted you dead? It would also hugely depend on the bear. A sunbear? Maybe. A polarbear could kill me just by sitting on me.
Animals only have so much motion to kill you. Polar bears have few food options and aren’t as scared of humans, while a lone black bear is more scared of you than you are of it. If you threaten any bear’s cubs, they’ll end you. However, apex predators rarely fight in the wild unless they have strong motive. They’ll often claim and cede territory without fighting directly.
“take in a fight” assumes both sides will be fighting though, not just stumbling upon eachother.
If a small sunbear wants to actively fight me, they’re like 30 kilos. I feel like have a nonzero chance against one. Not very much beyond zero though, because it’s got claws the size of my fingers
