Hacker News Reader

Comment by bryanrasmussen | Hacker News Reader

>I recall reading about a fossilized set of footprints in Australia that indicated a foot speed that would shame Usain Bolt

I can't help but feel that guy must have really been scared by something.

View on HN

Welp, down I go the rabbit hole of looking for how one might guess the speed of a runner from foot prints

Or he was hunting, and something was really scared by him.

I think clever hunting should not require alot of running, as a human.

Humans were good at long distance running hunting

Humans can out run and hunt down most animals because we evolved hairless sweating for cooling.

(Persistance hunting)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

I've always thought the Human/Wolf tag team must have been really frustrating for all the other animals. The two most successful persistence hunting species teaming up would be pretty lame for the prey species.

Like playing a game against a pro "this isn't even fair" throws controller

However that doesn't require being faster than Usain Bolt and actually works because we are better at long distance running than short sprints.

In Hooked, Nir Eyal talked about a tribe in South Africa whose members hunt a particular animal (I forgot its name) by running behind it for 8 hours straight.

Usually, that was rather a mix of walking, walking fast, and the occasional jog. The animal just broke down from exhaustion in the end, exactly _because_ it had been running all day.

This works for many larger animals. Humans have the benefit of being able to sweat and regulate our body temperature efficiently so all we need to do it chase the animal until it overheats and is exhausted. I'm not sure of the animal you were hearing about, but for many animals this would be way less than 8hrs (probably even as little as 10 minutes, maybe less).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com