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I believe persistent hunting also encourages very high intelligence for the tracking aspect as well. You're essentially emulating another creatures brain in order to figure out their likely movements whenever they go out of sight.

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That's a great point. I once saw one of those "HFY" threads where someone was speculating that if we became a warrior species in a multiplanetary federation, we'd be feared not just for our tenacity but also our ability to play mind games. Basically, "Never play poker against a human".

Not sure how important this is, often not needed if there are tracks etc. It would help, but wouldn't a better sense of smell help more?

If you watch the attenborough documentary linked above it has some clear examples. "The hunters have no tracks at this point and so must imagine the path the Kudu has taken". And later, "The tracks have disappeared again. He imagines being in the mind of the Kudu to deduce the direction it must have fled".

There's also the case that tracks alone need a lot of intelligence to process. "Here they can see the Kudu were running by the spacing of the tracks and the bull is isolated and taking a different track".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o

I posted that link. My comment was about relative importance.

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