

How Strong is a Chimpanzee? - suprgeek
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2009/02/how_strong_is_a_chimpanzee.html

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electromagnetic
I think the dangerousness of Chimpanzees, and the other tree dwelling apes is
that we're not accustomed to _their_ kind of strength.

A humans arm span is proportional to their height, so a 5'7" human has an arm
span of 5'7" (roughly). A 5'7" chimp or orangutan has an armspan of around 8'.
Which anyone who's a boxing fan knows that it's exceptionally difficult for
someone to win against an opponent that can outreach them, especially if it's
as significant as a foot.

Furthermore apes have significantly higher upper body strengths than humans.
This is especially noticeable in young chimps and orangutans that look more
like Popeye than a person. Even worse for humans is that we're accustomed to
punching and kicking. Apes are accustomed to grappling with both hands and
feet.

Flanged orangutans are considered highly dangerous, not only because they're
significantly bigger, heavier and stronger than humans, but that it really
doesn't matter if they get you with a hand or a foot, they've got enough
strength in that limb that you can't let go.

So why does the media find all this amazing? Because humans are weak, and it
seems like a divine intervention or something that made us survive because
they play to their audiences naivety.

So how did we survive these brutal apes? Because we didn't evolve anywhere
near them. Ape territories don't really overlap much, the different species
have their niche to live in. So by the time humans encountered apes we'd
already evolved tool use and sharpened sticks and heavy clubs were likely
intimidating enough to keep the chimpanzee pack from messing with our
ancestors.

This likely extended to other predator species of early humans too. Predators
aren't dumb, they want an easy meal not something that could kill them. Once
early humans started defending themselves with spears, wolves and lions would
likely have looked elsewhere for food.

~~~
runT1ME
Doesn't that imply that Apes/chimps, or even wolves and lions are able to
recognize and identify weapons? Or that their fear of humans evolved at the
same rate as we adapted to use tools?

~~~
electromagnetic
Discovery has a program called "Into the Pride" with Dave Salmoni, where he
tries to live closely with a pride of lions to decrease their territorial
aggression against humans in a safari zone (because if they don't bring in
tourist dollars they get put down and a new pride gets brought in).

The lions certainly seem to understand that a spear is something they don't
want to get close to. Even the overly aggressive seem to respect it, which
seems absurd for a stick.

The question is how long it took before animals started recognizing weapons.

It could simply be a product of a stick increasing the persons silhouette,
which makes us 'bigger' and the speed we can move it around at. Similar to why
you're supposed to hold your arms out and wave and shout if you see a bear.

------
harold
Back in the 80's, a family friend had an autobody repair shop.

The circus was in town, and one of their trailers needed some dent work on a
fender. The circus guy told the foreman "Don't worry about Fred, he's
harmless. Just don't let him out" The foreman thought this was a joke. But as
they started in on their repair, they realized there was a chimp in a cage on
the trailer. As they unbolted the fender, the chimp reached his arm out of the
cage and grabbed it - and would not let go. Even with three of the shop
workers pulling on it.

They evidently bribed the chimp with cookies and were able to complete the
repair.

~~~
cema
What a great story! Thanks!

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acangiano
For the curious, this is what a hairless chimpanzee (a female to be exact)
looks like: <http://i.imgur.com/4JLOt.jpg> I wouldn't want to fight that. ;)

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feralchimp
"The apes beat us in leg strength, too, despite our reliance on our legs for
locomotion."

Oh we rely on our legs for locomotion, do we? Humans 'locomote' about as
vigorously and often as chimps play Angry Birds whilst shotgunning bags of
donettes.

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thematt
In reference to the attacked woman at the beginning of the article, here's
what the chimp did:

(Disclaimer: The images are _pretty bad_ )

<http://socialmediaseo.net/2010/05/07/charla-nash/>

~~~
rottencupcakes
That link you posted really lives up to its domain name in reporting quality.

Half of the pictures it cites as being of Charla Nash are really of Connie
Culp, a woman who got a face transplant after being shot in the face by her
husband.

Charla Nash _also_ got a face transplant, the results are here
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054219/Chimp-
attack...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054219/Chimp-attack-
victim-Charla-Nash-gives-interview-face-transplant.html).

------
jjchiw
I just remembered a "debate" Q/A about a chimpanzee vs bruce lee
<http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=567144>

------
azov
it's unfair to compare professional human athletes to caged chimpanzees in a
zoo. Compare poor chimps to some pizza-eating couch potato human spending most
of his time in front of TV (or computer monitor) instead, lifestyle matters!
:-)

