Re: Faster Than A Hyena?

<pgarrone@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:b5bd76a6-efac-4175-808d-d418edff1183@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Luckily, you did not have to compete
with lions, hyenas, cheetahs, wild dogs,
smilodon, dire wolves, giant carnivorous
bears, and all he other predators around
with HE.

The point I was making was that it is definitely possible and
straightforward for humans to engage in cursorial hunting.

The point I was making is that your
'argument' tell us nothing about what
was possible for HE.

Considering your predators with respect to the emergence of Erectus :

- Dire wolves and giant carnivorous bears were uninvolved, as they are
American. (Erectus emerged in Africa)
- the felids such as lions, cheetahs, and Dionfelis (rather than
smilodon, which again is American) are not cursorial hunters. Lions
were not around until 1.5 mya.

OK, some of my examples were silly --
but there were plenty of large predators
and scavengers around at the time of HE.

This leaves the African hunting dog, Lycaon Pictus.

A lot more was 'left'.

While these are
formidable cursorial predators, it is not difficult to envisage Homo
having advantages such as posture, vision, and intelligence, as well
as an alternate food supply when game was sparse.

Homo were certainly not an obligate
carnivore -- and probably often not
much of a carnivore at all.

It takes a certain intelligence to cope with the hunted animal's
various strategems. So its still an option. However any sensible
person would obviously just lay a trap and save all that unnecessary
energy expenditure.

Very likely. So why all the supposed
selection for speed and endurance?

A cursorial hunter needs to eventually run down it's prey, as well as
out-think it, so both endurance and intelligence are required.

You seem to have missed my point.
Someone who can set traps will not
bother to run.

Running -- after prey -- is only possible
(and effective) when (a) trapping is
difficult (e.g. since game is rare),
(b) when the country is so sparse that
there is little or no shelter for a wounded
prey animal to hide, and
(c) where tracking is feasible.

These conditions match desert and
semi-desert -- the habitat of the Kung
San.

As to why the A'piths went extinct? Leakey says they were under
pressure from Homo on one side

Homo were in a different habitat --
according to you and to standard PA.

What different habitat?

Why ask me? It's your theory. I gather
that the notion is that Apiths were
supposedly in forest and Homo was on
the savanna.


and Baboons on the other.

They'd been competing with baboons
from day 1. Why evolve at all if they
did not have some distinct advantages?
Baboons will always survive in dense
jungle (where no one maintains
hominds lived). Apiths must have
had some edge in more open habitat.

"We know that Homo Erectus was an extremely successful species, since
it was the first human to expand its range beyond Africa.

Poor logic. Leaving Africa does not
mean it was doing well there.

It is
therefore likely that early Homo grew rapidly in numbers, thus
becoming a significant competitor for a resource essential to
Australopithicene survival: food.

Even worse. If Apiths were in a different
habitat, they were eating different food.

Moreover between 1 and 2 million
years ago ground-living monkeys - the baboons - were also becoming
highly successful and burgeoning in numbers, and would have competed
with Australopithecines for food. The Australopithecines might well
have succumbed to a twofold competitive pressure- from homo on one
side and baboons on the other."
Leakey 1994 "The origin of Humankind" p 58

This dreadful 'reasoning' is best described
as 'fantasy'.

It seems unlikely that "baboons were there from day 1" as you say.

Baboons have been around for many
millions of years. Unlike chimps and
gorillas, they have left a rich fossil
record.

However I do tend to disagree with Leakey in the sense that the
biggest enemies of the A'piths would have been Homo, rather than
baboons, because only robust A'piths evolved after Homo appears. As
Homo had the speed, endurance, and intelligence, the only A'pith
advantage was size

They lived in a different habitat. Apiths
are supposed to sleep in trees, and
homo not. (All nonsense, of course)
But standard theory says they did not
occupy the same habitat.

and possibly numbers, as breeding an A'pith would
have been faster than a Homo.

A silly point. The rate of reproduction
would have been very little different.

as if fills the criteria of small gradual steps,

Gradual steps? Nonsense. The
adaptation to cope with rotten meat
is huge. All cats are carnivores, but
none will touch rotten meat -- even
though they must encounter it all
the time. Much the same applies to
carnivorous birds. Only those with
special adaptations (e.g. vultures)
will eat rotten flesh.

Where you accuse me of fantasy, and you do not present any arguments
against the scenario's outlined, then you are simply engaging in
personal attack, and you make no point at all.

To call a statement 'fantasy' is NOT to
mount a personal attack. Perhaps I
make no argument, but I make my
stance clear.

You accuse me of ignoring the rules of evolution, but do not outline
which rules are being broken.

The rules are broken with 'niche-swapping'
(as should have been clear). What other
taxon has indulged in one tiny fraction
of that, over the past 6 million years or
so? You can claim that hominids were so
exceptional that they could things far
beyond the capacity of other taxa -- but
it is not a trustworthy argurment.

With respect to the absurdity of primates leaving trees and
scavenging, Baboons and chimps hunt, and all hunters scavenge when
they can and hunt when they must.

Not true. Cats do not scavenge -- in
any real sense of the word. Chimps
do not scavenge. They will not touch
meat they do not kill themselves.
Baboons are (almost certainly) the
same. Scavenging involves (indeed
requires) the acquisition of a taste
for rotten meat. We do not have it.

You say scavenging is impossible because homo cannot eat rotten meat.
Yet it is possible to scavenge meat that is not yet rotten, most
likely by stealing a kill. You just have to be smart, and quick.

'Stealing a kill' is not scavenging.
In any case, nearly all kills are at
night. There's no future for a 'super-
predator' which does not do it by
night.

"We are hopeless in the dark". No one is claiming Homo was a nocturnal
ambush predator.

If Homo had ever begun to rely on
carnivory, the taxon would, almost
necessarily, have become largely
nocturnal -- after the manner of
nearly all carnivores. The only
exception to this rule are cheetahs,
which rely on great speed -- never
available to Homo.

I am growing tired of your ad-hominem, your mindless and un-sustained
accusations of fantasy and ignorance, when you make such stupid
mistakes as inferring american predators such as smiledon, giant
bears, and dire wolves, would interfere with the emergence of Erectus.

You should find a gentler occupation
-- maybe pressing flowers.


Paul.


.

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