"Why, thats man of coursePlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!" Wrong douchebag! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Or maybe you are right imaginary person, I'm not sure, how would we judge such a thing? All the predators are as good as they need to be, I know this is a childish question in a scientific sense, but which predator is closest to perfection and why? This place needs some threads that involve other animals, I just realised sciforums is extremely human-centric:bugeye:
Everyones a fucking comedian Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Well a virus is more like a parasite which is a different category all together and I don't think age is even an organism. I'm talking about hunters, come on lets give the great hunters of our planet some props. The highest success rate award is shared by the chimpanzee and the african cape hunting dog at around 95%. Thats pretty impressive. They wipe the floor with humans and we have guns. They both maintain this great percentage by very different means. The african hunting dog specialises in harrassment. They simply don't give up and have developed maybe the greatest stamina in all of the mammals. They don't ambush, or even chase at a high speed, they approach a herd of wildebeast(or whatever) and start jogging towards them, setting in for a long chase, once they pick you out of the herd its goodnight. The chimpanzee, on the other hand, hunts monkeys that should find it quite easy to evade them. The monkeys are smaller, faster and lighter which means they can access braches the chimps can't. But the chimps don't rush into anything. They carefully plan their attack before hand. The leader of the troupe will give intricate orders to each member by pounding on the trunks of trees, on the ground and on his chest with his feet and hands at different rates, like morse code. There is verbal commincation but it plays smaller roles, the hunt is very important and everyone needs exact orders for it to work. The first thing the chimps do after getting their orders is disperse and scream, the screaming disorientates the monkeys and panics them. It also draws there attention away from the one silent chimp, the leader, who is sneaking to a planned location where he trusts his troupes will chase the monkeys. As I said earlier, the monkeys can reach branches the chimps can't so if the monkeys were a little brighter they would stay on those branches but the screaming panics them and forces them to keep moving as far away from the chimps as possible. Chimps are strategically placed to form a pathway for the monkey that leads directly to the leader who will usually be hiding. In the monkeys desperate attempts to escape the hollering chimps it will usually run straight into the leader, if it spots the leader at the last second it will turn straight into the mob that had been chasing it. Escape is so rare that it has never been recorded. Which technically makes chimps hunting success rate 100%. It is a given that they simply must have screwed up at least a few times so "around 95%" is what they give. But is success rate all we should take into account? What about killer whales? They have been seen placing unharmed baby seals back on the beach they took them from. To say this is a "failed hunt" is similar to saying it is a failed hunt everytime you play with your dog without killing it. What else could we look at?
A poll would have been good..no? I think people have the technology but not the agressivness and skill that other wild hunter animals possess.
What about sharks? I don't know about sucsess rate, but they seem like a pretty good vote. They really haven't changed in how long? (evolutionarily speaking) According to that measure, they must be dong something right. Also what about how rarely they die from things like old age and such?
Good points. Evolution stumbled onto perfect designs with both sharks and crocs. We know they are perfect because they haven't NEEDED to change since they sprung up. Some less than perfect crocodilian and shark species have come and gone but yes I agree that they are generally perfect hunters. If we are going to go with best base design, I think sharks and crocs(and perhaps a few other prehistoric creatures like squids) would definately have to take the medal. They are the ultimate killing machines, perfection has been reached in their "family trees". But I have a feeling some of the new comers are getting there. If man weren't here, there are a few species I can see that would have no reason to change. Sperm whales are perfection, doing a task no animal(including us) can do or ever could do before. Hunting the giant squids of the abyss. They have a complex taxonomy(is that the word? Help me biology people), they have developed ways of storing oxygen in their bones and compressing their blood in the centre of their bodies and many other complex adaptations to deep sea diving. They are coloured black to hide them in the deep and they hunt by sonar which is perfect for their prey who has no sense of hearing. Having a perfect base design can be detrimental, the squid has reinforced through breeding what has been a perfect design for hundreds of millions of years but this has made it harder to make a change now that they really could use one. Not that they are endangered, but their hunter the sperm whale has all the advantages. And in fact advantages seem to be a trend in all the toothed whales. They are a relatively recent success story in the story of evolution. I'd say they are perfect predators with fancy accessories. From rounding fish shoals into tight balls and battering them with their tails to riding waves into the beach to grab land animals, they have discovered so many new ways to hunt then the simple chase and bite. They have giant brains like ours attached to perfect killing machine bodies and they can "hear in the dark" with sonar. They have x-ray vision basically. They are super-animals like the flying squirrel and the electric eelPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I'd say they are the most impressive hunters on earth, certainly the water. And the toughest and most adaptible of the toothed whales is the killer whale so it gets my vote. There are so many great hunters though, the cat family is a goldmine, even the housecat is extraordinary to witness in action. Have we all seen the leopard on the national geographic commercial? It ambushes a sprinkbok that tries to jump over it, the leopard leaps up and tackles the springbok in midair causing both of them to do a full 360 back flip, of course, the leopard lands on top of the springbok. There is a lizard that runs and leaps and bounds on its back legs chasing other lizards through the rocky deserts. Spiders that build webs are phenomenonal when you think about it, but even more peculiar is the spider that builds lassoo's out of its web-silk and swings them around like a cowboy before tossing them on moths. Forget best predator, it really is impossible to say, this can just be the "predator appeciation thread"Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! With hi-tech camera work the real life animal kingdom can make the matrix seem amateur.
Yes, ants are awesome. Some scientists say the ant colony should be looked at as an individual rather than a group of little individuals, what do you think about that? I think its reasonable considering. If so, the millions strong army ant colonies of south america could be considered the ultimate predators.
Just a minor little piont. I agree with everything you said about the killer whale. The are really a superb being. However, the killer whale is not a whale. Orca is in the Dolphin family. It is really just a big ass Dolphin with a misnomer.
Yes they are dolphins... and dolphins are toothed whalesPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
But I was watching a documentary on Dolphins just the other day and William Shatner (he was narrating it) said something like, "Killer Whales, or Orca, aren't acually whales at all. They are members of the Dolphin family. They are sometimes referred to as Blackfish, which is also, obvioulsy a misnomer because they are not fish at all, and they are not all black." Captain Kirk wouldn't lie to me. Would he?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Captain kirk is a good manPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I never ever watched star trek but I have seen him in documentaries as well and he has a real good grip on reality. Not many famous people will publically say they think "..whalesharks, and all life, are JUST as important as human beings..." and he isn't lying to you one raven, I have used the same line when people think orcas are whales. But strictly speaking all cetaceans are whales. Its kind of complicated. I guess dolphins are almost at the stage where they could be considered a different family to whales but I don't think that they officially are yet. Orcas are much closer related to dolphins than they are to "whales", they ARE a type of dolphin as you said, but I'm just not sure if we can say dolphins aren't whales yet. I think it would bring into question many of the toothed whales like sperm whales. They are probably closer to dolphins than they are to humpbacks but they aren't a type of dolphin like the orca so where do they go? I could be wrong but I think the scientific community still regards dolphins as a type of whale.
I changed my mind from 'army ants' to 'god' as ultimate killer/predator. He kills them all in the end after all...a job well done. We salute you... you pervert.
I would love to see army ants engulf and devour godPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Untill all that was left was a halo and the stick that was up his ass.
