Why dont impalas use their horns to defend themselves, instead of just trying to escape? They could impale those cheetahs if they were more clever, like those rabbits that let the eagle get some speed and then jump over it.
Why dont impalas use their horns to defend themselves, instead of just trying to escape?
>impala
>posts pic of a some deer or something?????
Why are you talking about cars on Wauf‽
They run because the predator is better at fighting than they are.
Here is a cheetah killing a heavier and more robust antelope,impalas have no chance.
OP would be like the retarded antelope, unfortunately.
Those are for you to hold on to.
because the cheetah would still get a few hits in and they'd be dead from infected wounds anyway
That's assuming a cheetah won't back down. It's basically guaranteed death for the cheetah with a small chance of injuring the impala.
To develop an eraser neck you need to stand up for yourself first.
>small chance of injuring the impala.
lol you're impaling the cheetah he's gonna stay there for at least a few seconds, it's gonna swipe at least a couple times on reflex 100%
Best answer so far. Convinced/10
horns face the wrong way
sticking your head in a predator's face isn't a great survival strategy
Excuse me?
Pop quiz smoothbrain
Which has a better chance of survival if nicked? A pencil neck, or an eraser neck?
>baaaaaahs your ears off
No self awareness. Just fine tuned instinct that evolved.
If they could perceive the world and make decisions they wouldn’t be food.
you run away in the hopes that some other idiot tries fighting back to buy you time and removes himself from the gene pool. Those guys are literally caught in a prisoner's dilemma
Cause it's really fucking scary to charge at some huge snarling predator. It's much safer and easier to just run away as fast as possible.
yeah but humans went from panther food to the cause of panther extinction. remember lions in Europe? neither do i!
the only reason we still have any big cats is because we can make money off them and africans are still going to kill the last of theirs off in the next 100 years (took them long enough)
Humans don't have to use spears that are attached to the backs of their heads.
Lions were in Europe up until about 300 AD. The Romans killed them all because they kept throwing them in coliseums and private zoos but never bothered to breed them
It doesn't look like it would have enough power to use them well.
They are prey animals. Their horns developed for mating displays/mating fights and they don't instinctively try to kill with them.
They have no language to discuss an idea like fighting predators to the death in an organized or widespread fashion. If, for some reason, an individual impala does this, all it does is risk injury and death and taking itself out of the gene pool.
The natural balance between predator and prey tends to avoid extinction, so on a species wide level there is no selective pressure that favours this kind of behaviour.
>this thread again
If the animal fights back, they'll either:
>lose (bad)
>win (good)
>win but be too wounded so that its either going to die anyway or just going to be food for the next predator that comes along (bad)
If the prey runs, it either
>gets away (good)
>doesnt (bad)
fighting is too costly, running is cheaper, running wins.The only time "just get away from the thing trying to eat you" DOESNT work is when you have a pursuit predator like humans that'll just jason voorhees around a tree when they least suspect it, so US they're better off fighting (which we're more vulnerable to given how fucking squishy we are comparatively)
You're forgetting that prey outnumber their predators by like 10-20 times. 3 impala would easily demolish any cheetah without taking any damage.
The actual reason is that the prey that didn't run ended up starving after killing their predators and those that ran had proper population control and ended up spreading their genes more.
most herbivores are kind of retarded, no way impalas could coordinate to take down cheetas
>humans
>pursuit predators
Pick one.
You don't track the very braps of your prey?
Instinct. They sometimes do when cornered but running is their main means of defense.
Well duh. His point is why is it their instinct to run away and not to use the horns