OK, so I've been watching these videos of wild dogs (painted wild dogs) and hyenas hunting

and killing technqiques, and I am astounded at the efficiency with which the kill.

But mostly, I'm shocked by just how cruel nature actually is. I personally have always thought

that the Universe is tipped towards pain and suffering, and that all life succumbs to it

in one form or another regardless of how beautiful or pleasurable stretches of life are.

But humans have the luxury of dying in beds...surrounded by family.

It dawned on me that most animals, aquatic or land...mammal, amphibian,

or reptile....omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore meet their ends much more

violently.

This is a truly disturbing video, so do not click unless you are able to handle

violence, blood, and ....agonizing death.

NSFW (sort of)...VERY VIOLENT CONTENT

It reminds me of Perry Ferrell's words, "Of course this land is dangerous, all of

god's animals are capably murderous... "

i couldn't watch the whole thing

[Edited 5/18/12 13:55pm]

BobGeorge909 said:

Damn....talk about getting your ass eaten out....

banks said:

Sponsored by PeTA?

PANDURITO said:

TOE DAT ASS UP!!!

Hyenas will kill the shit out of a human, too. They don't play.

imago said:

OK, so I've been watching these videos of wild dogs (painted wild dogs) and hyenas hunting

and killing technqiques, and I am astounded at the efficiency with which the kill.

But mostly, I'm shocked by just how cruel nature actually is. I personally have always thought

that the Universe is tipped towards pain and suffering, and that all life succumbs to it

in one form or another regardless of how beautiful or pleasurable stretches of life are.

But humans have the luxury of dying in beds...surrounded by family.

It dawned on me that most animals, aquatic or land...mammal, amphibian,

or reptile....omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore meet their ends much more

violently.

This is a truly disturbing video, so do not click unless you are able to handle

violence, blood, and ....agonizing death.

It reminds me of Perry Ferrell's words, "Of course this land is dangerous, all of

god's animals are capably murderous... "

All those things, seriously didn't occur to you before then? I figured that stuff out before I lost my front teeth.

This reminds me of some of the vids on YouTube of people feeding their pet snakes, and random jackasses flipping out in the comments saying that they would report the video and how inhumane it was and "Oh, the poor mouse", only to clusterfuck anybody that points out to them that it's not animal abuse so much as documenting a natural process on camera.

Animals kill and eat each other, period. And usually it's not a pretty or easy death.

But at least they do it for survival purposes strictly, which can't always be said for human beings...

Dren5 said:

imago said:

OK, so I've been watching these videos of wild dogs (painted wild dogs) and hyenas hunting

and killing technqiques, and I am astounded at the efficiency with which the kill.

But mostly, I'm shocked by just how cruel nature actually is. I personally have always thought

that the Universe is tipped towards pain and suffering, and that all life succumbs to it

in one form or another regardless of how beautiful or pleasurable stretches of life are.

But humans have the luxury of dying in beds...surrounded by family.

It dawned on me that most animals, aquatic or land...mammal, amphibian,

or reptile....omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore meet their ends much more

violently.

This is a truly disturbing video, so do not click unless you are able to handle

violence, blood, and ....agonizing death.

It reminds me of Perry Ferrell's words, "Of course this land is dangerous, all of

god's animals are capably murderous... "

All those things, seriously didn't occur to you before then? I figured that stuff out before I lost my front teeth.

This reminds me of some of the vids on YouTube of people feeding their pet snakes, and random jackasses flipping out in the comments saying that they would report the video and how inhumane it was and "Oh, the poor mouse", only to clusterfuck anybody that points out to them that it's not animal abuse so much as documenting a natural process on camera.

Animals kill and eat each other, period. And usually it's not a pretty or easy death.

But at least they do it for survival purposes strictly, which can't always be said for human beings...

When I call nature cruel, I'm not turning it into a moral judgement.

I'm merely pointing out how prevelent pain is in all of creation.

I take pity on anything that suffers, but certain would never say a snake is evil for killing a rabbit.

imago said:

Dren5 said:

All those things, seriously didn't occur to you before then? I figured that stuff out before I lost my front teeth.

This reminds me of some of the vids on YouTube of people feeding their pet snakes, and random jackasses flipping out in the comments saying that they would report the video and how inhumane it was and "Oh, the poor mouse", only to clusterfuck anybody that points out to them that it's not animal abuse so much as documenting a natural process on camera.

Animals kill and eat each other, period. And usually it's not a pretty or easy death.

But at least they do it for survival purposes strictly, which can't always be said for human beings...

When I call nature cruel, I'm not turning it into a moral judgement.

I'm merely pointing out how prevelent pain is in all of creation.

I take pity on anything that suffers, but certain would never say a snake is evil for killing a rabbit.

...Did you live next door to Wally and the Beav?

Cerebus said:

Hyenas will kill the shit out of a human, too. They don't play.

YA THINK!!!

Dren5 said:

imago said:

When I call nature cruel, I'm not turning it into a moral judgement.

I'm merely pointing out how prevelent pain is in all of creation.

I take pity on anything that suffers, but certain would never say a snake is evil for killing a rabbit.

...Did you live next door to Wally and the Beav?

I don't understand the reference.

KingBAD said:

Cerebus said:

Hyenas will kill the shit out of a human, too. They don't play.

YA THINK!!!

It doesn't happen all that often, but it does happen. And they'll follow you closely at night - which is creepy as all get out.

The Spotted Hyena FAQ. Some, uhhh, interesting stuff in there.

http://wearesites.com/Personal/Hyenas/spotted_faq.php

Scientific name: Crocuta crocuta

Q: What's the difference between a spotted hyena and any other hyena?
A: There are four species of hyenas: the spotted, striped and brown hyenas and the aardwolf. The aardwolf eats only termites. The striped and brown hyenas scavenge more than the spotted hyena, and look different as well.

Q: They're related to dogs, right?
A: Wrong. Hyenas are a family of their own, the Hyaenidae. They're more closely related to cats than dogs, but their closest relatives are the Herpestidae -- mongooses, meerkats and such.

Q: But what on earth do they have in common with cats?
A: Skeletal details it would take a specialist to explain. DNA studies also prove the relationship. When hyenas lick the space between their hind legs, they lift one or both hind legs into the air much like cats -- "playing the cello," as one cat-lover has called it. One observer claims the female purrs while suckling her cubs.

Q: Okay, so could a hyena cross with either a cat or a dog and produce offspring?
A: No way! In order to produce offspring, even sterile ones, the parents have to be sufficiently closely related to at least be in the same family of animals. Dogs are in one family, the Canidae. Cats are in another, the Felidae. And as I've just said above, hyenas are in their own family. They couldn't possibly produce offspring with any canid or felid, not even with artificial fertilization in a laboratory.

Those stories you read in places like the National Enquirer about cats breeding with rabbits or dogs and humans breeding with gods only know what and actually producing hybrid offspring are just that -- wild stories, invented for the ignorant and gullible who want to be titillated.

Q: How hard can a hyena bite, really?
A: Dr. Frank advises me a lot of figures get tossed around, but they usually involve one attempt to measure one individual animal's strength on one occasion. Such figures aren't much use. But a hyena can support its own weight by its jaws -- it can actually hang by its jaws from a larger animal. Hyenas -- Nature's Gangsters shows dramatic proof of this when a hyena hangs onto a full-grown topi antelope by its jaws alone while the topi leaps, lunges and spins in a futile effort to throw off its captor.

However, Wendy Binder of UCLA did do a study on Dr. Frank's hyenas. According to Dr. Frank:

"Unfortunately, Wendy's thesis presents her data in terms of force (Newtons) rather than pressure (psi). She measured forces as high as 4500 Newtons, but a quick search of the internet did not show me an easy way to convert this to a pressure measure. I assume that would involve dividing the force measure over a surface area; the unit conversation program that I found said that 4500 Newtons is equal to 1011 pound force. Perhaps if this were divided by the surface area of the tooth doing the biting??? I would guess that is less than 1/4 sq. in., so the force might be around 4000 psi???"

That should give you an idea how uncertain such measurements are, even in a laboratory setting. But suffice it to say you wouldn't want to get bitten by a spotted hyena.

These figures may not apply to striped and brown hyenas, and definitely don't apply to aardwolves, whose jaws and teeth are so feeble that they can't even chew meat.

Q: Is it true that they're just scavengers?
A: No. Spotted hyenas kill their own prey more often than they scavenge. Favorite prey include wildebeests and zebras. But most carnivores, hyenas included, will scavenge when they get a chance.

Q: I've heard hyenas follow lions around and live off their kills.
A: It's more often the other way around. Lions often take over hyenas' kills; the males will walk right into a clan of feeding hyenas and take the carcass from them. Hyenas will steal kills from lionesses if no male lions are around and they badly outnumber the lionesses.

Q: They must not get along very well together. Do they?
A: "If animals can hate, this is a blood feud of hatred," according to Eternal Enemies. Male lions will chase and kill hyenas with no provocation. Hyenas will chase a lioness even after she abandons her kill to them. Hyenas kill and eat sick, injured or dead lions.

Q: Do hyenas have any predators, or natural enemies other than lions and humans?
A: No predators actually eat hyenas. It's not terribly efficient or helpful to one's survival to hunt other large predators. However, hyenas are vulnerable to disease organisms and parasites like any other wild animal, and this could be seen as a kind of predation.

African wild dogs seem to detest spotted hyenas almost as much as lions do. If they catch one alone, especially near their dens or their kills, they'll mob and harass it, to the point of blood being drawn.

Q: Do they really laugh?
A: When excited, especially when being attacked by another hyena, a spotted hyena will make a giggling noise. Spotted hyenas also make other noises, including a long, manic whoop best transcribed as "oooooh-WHUP!." (Here's [a poor-quality AU file] of their cries.) None of these sounds indicate humor as humans know it.

Q: How fast can they run?
A: Dr. Frank thinks their top speed is approximately 30 miles an hour.

Q: Will hyenas eat each other?
A: Adult hyenas of the same clan don't normally kill and eat each other. Hans Kruuk records an incident in which hyenas ate the carcass of another hyena of a different clan with whom they had fought earlier.

Q: Is it true that hyenas can change sexes?
A: No mammal can do that. What is true is that the female hyena's genitals look just like the male's: she has a huge clitoris she can erect at will and even has a sack of fibrous tissue that looks like testicles.

Q: My God, why?
A: No one knows for sure. We know what it's used for: the hyena greeting ceremony. Each hyena sniffs and licks the other's genitals and erects its own penis or clitoris. It's like dogs sniffing each other's rumps. Erection is voluntary, like raising your arm.

Q: You said the females are dominant on another page. Don't the males resent this?
A: Sometimes several males will "bait" a single female, standing around her, barking at and even nipping her. She lies down defensively and takes it, only biting back when they get close. Sometimes this baiting is serious: Kruuk saw one female with blood on her legs afterward. Other times the baiting will stop and the female will get up and walk away as if nothing had happened. If her female relatives hear the racket, they may stop the baiting. Whether this is the male equivalent of resistance to sexism, only hyenas know. Dr. Laurence Frank states that this happens when a female comes into heat and several males are following her. Dr. Mills states that other females may join in.

Q: It sounds as if hyenas don't get along very well, even if they don't eat each other.
A: Kruuk thought adult hyena society remarkably peaceful within the clan, but Dr. Frank states that female hyenas behave very aggressively toward each other. Hyenas from different clans war with each other in pitched mass battles. These fights seldom cause injuries, but occasionally one or even several hyenas are killed.

Q: Whoah! You said "adult hyena society." Surely the cubs don't fight?
A: Cubs fight viciously, often quite literally from the moment they're born. BBC's Carnivore! series has gruesome footage illustrating this. A hyena has given birth to three cubs, and two are already fighting savagely -- until they notice the third, still being licked dry, and attack it. As many as 25 percent of all cubs may die from such fights before adulthood. The worst fighting is between two sisters in the same litter. As soon as she can, the stronger female will kill the weaker. Unlike most carnivores, hyenas are born with their eyes open and teeth functional.

Q: Doesn't the mother stop this?
A: Occasionally she tries, but it's a losing battle. Also, cubs dig a network of smaller tunnels from the birthing den, tunnels into which the adults don't fit, and will kill each other there. Or, the weaker cub may be so intimidated that it doesn't dare come out to nurse and so starves to death.

Q: How long does she raise them?
A: The gestation period is 110 days, but the length of time she nurses them varies a lot depending on how dominant she is. The cubs of high-ranking mothers get to eat from the kills at a much younger age than those of low-ranking mothers, so are weaned earlier -- perhaps as early as at 8 months. The cubs of a low-ranking mother may have to nurse up to a year and a half.

Q: Do they mate for life, like wolves?
A: No. Mating is a one-time thing. The females apparently will only mate with males who were not born in the clan, sometimes even with nomadic males not attached to any clan. Males are usually transients anyway, wandering from their birth clans and often moving from clan to clan.

Q: Will hyenas eat people?
A: Dead people, yes, just as they would any other dead animal. Hyenas usually run from humans, which is why scientists studying them stay in cars and watch them through binoculars or video cameras. But in some areas, hyenas occasionally bite or even eat people, especially if they find them sleeping outside at night, according to Dr. Frank.

Q: Are there any zoos where I can go see hyenas?
A: Most zoos don't care to display hyenas, because there still isn't much public demand. People still think of hyenas as cowardly, ugly scavengers. If more people get the facts, and zoos get more requests, that may change. I'll try to keep a list of zoos that do have them (in halfway decent conditions that allow them to live a clan life):

The St. Louis Zoo in Missouri has a small clan of three female spotted hyenas in its River's Edge exhibit. So does Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, in its "Edge of Africa" exhibit.

Q: All this stuff has made me think about getting myself a pet hyena. Do you know where I can get one, and what they need in captivity?
(Try not to snicker: I've had four emails like this already.)
I do not recommend any wild animal as a pet, much less a carnivore, much less a large carnivore. More often than not, it ends up with the animal suffering terribly and even being killed, and sometimes with human beings being mauled or killed as well. (And think about the legal repercussions if a child reaches in through the fence to pet your hyena and gets bitten...) For these reasons, I will not tell you how to get a pet hyena. Please don't ask.

Q: Do hyenas have any redeeming features at all?
A: The notion that Nature must justify itself to humanity is a holdover from creationism, I think. By contrasting the peculiar social behavior of hyenas with other social animals, including primates, we may learn more about ourselves and why we became social, and the evolutionary reasons for male dominance and female dominance. They also keep their prey animals' numbers under control like any other carnivore, and help rid the plains of carcasses. Finally, hyenas are interesting and have a basic right to exist, just like any other living thing.

I'm finding this thread very fascinating!

I love reading about all animals, but my favorites are top-of-the-food-chain predators.

For anyone who is going to misunderstand or miscomprehend the purpose of this thread,

it's not to make any type of moral judgement or to seperate human behavior from animal

behavior--I'm in the school that believes we're just animals. The purpose is just to show

the shocking reality of nature in general.

I just saw a video of a wild dog killing a young kudu. Lawd hammercy.

imago said:

I'm finding this thread very fascinating!

I love reading about all animals, but my favorites are top-of-the-food-chain predators.

For anyone who is going to misunderstand or miscomprehend the purpose of this thread,

it's not to make any type of moral judgement or to seperate human behavior from animal

behavior--I'm in the school that believes we're just animals. The purpose is just to show

the shocking reality of nature in general.

I just saw a video of a wild dog killing a young kudu. Lawd hammercy.

All you've got to do is watch or read the news for a couple weeks to know how violent the human animal is.

Cerebus said:

The Spotted Hyena FAQ. Some, uhhh, interesting stuff in there.

http://wearesites.com/Personal/Hyenas/spotted_faq.php

Scientific name: Crocuta crocuta

Q: What's the difference between a spotted hyena and any other hyena?
A: There are four species of hyenas: the spotted, striped and brown hyenas and the aardwolf. The aardwolf eats only termites. The striped and brown hyenas scavenge more than the spotted hyena, and look different as well.

Q: They're related to dogs, right?
A: Wrong. Hyenas are a family of their own, the Hyaenidae. They're more closely related to cats than dogs, but their closest relatives are the Herpestidae -- mongooses, meerkats and such.

Q: But what on earth do they have in common with cats?
A: Skeletal details it would take a specialist to explain. DNA studies also prove the relationship. When hyenas lick the space between their hind legs, they lift one or both hind legs into the air much like cats -- "playing the cello," as one cat-lover has called it. One observer claims the female purrs while suckling her cubs.

Q: Okay, so could a hyena cross with either a cat or a dog and produce offspring?
A: No way! In order to produce offspring, even sterile ones, the parents have to be sufficiently closely related to at least be in the same family of animals. Dogs are in one family, the Canidae. Cats are in another, the Felidae. And as I've just said above, hyenas are in their own family. They couldn't possibly produce offspring with any canid or felid, not even with artificial fertilization in a laboratory.

Those stories you read in places like the National Enquirer about cats breeding with rabbits or dogs and humans breeding with gods only know what and actually producing hybrid offspring are just that -- wild stories, invented for the ignorant and gullible who want to be titillated.

Q: How hard can a hyena bite, really?
A: Dr. Frank advises me a lot of figures get tossed around, but they usually involve one attempt to measure one individual animal's strength on one occasion. Such figures aren't much use. But a hyena can support its own weight by its jaws -- it can actually hang by its jaws from a larger animal. Hyenas -- Nature's Gangsters shows dramatic proof of this when a hyena hangs onto a full-grown topi antelope by its jaws alone while the topi leaps, lunges and spins in a futile effort to throw off its captor.

However, Wendy Binder of UCLA did do a study on Dr. Frank's hyenas. According to Dr. Frank:

"Unfortunately, Wendy's thesis presents her data in terms of force (Newtons) rather than pressure (psi). She measured forces as high as 4500 Newtons, but a quick search of the internet did not show me an easy way to convert this to a pressure measure. I assume that would involve dividing the force measure over a surface area; the unit conversation program that I found said that 4500 Newtons is equal to 1011 pound force. Perhaps if this were divided by the surface area of the tooth doing the biting??? I would guess that is less than 1/4 sq. in., so the force might be around 4000 psi???"

That should give you an idea how uncertain such measurements are, even in a laboratory setting. But suffice it to say you wouldn't want to get bitten by a spotted hyena.

These figures may not apply to striped and brown hyenas, and definitely don't apply to aardwolves, whose jaws and teeth are so feeble that they can't even chew meat.

Q: Is it true that they're just scavengers?
A: No. Spotted hyenas kill their own prey more often than they scavenge. Favorite prey include wildebeests and zebras. But most carnivores, hyenas included, will scavenge when they get a chance.

Q: I've heard hyenas follow lions around and live off their kills.
A: It's more often the other way around. Lions often take over hyenas' kills; the males will walk right into a clan of feeding hyenas and take the carcass from them. Hyenas will steal kills from lionesses if no male lions are around and they badly outnumber the lionesses.

Q: They must not get along very well together. Do they?
A: "If animals can hate, this is a blood feud of hatred," according to Eternal Enemies. Male lions will chase and kill hyenas with no provocation. Hyenas will chase a lioness even after she abandons her kill to them. Hyenas kill and eat sick, injured or dead lions.

Q: Do hyenas have any predators, or natural enemies other than lions and humans?
A: No predators actually eat hyenas. It's not terribly efficient or helpful to one's survival to hunt other large predators. However, hyenas are vulnerable to disease organisms and parasites like any other wild animal, and this could be seen as a kind of predation.

African wild dogs seem to detest spotted hyenas almost as much as lions do. If they catch one alone, especially near their dens or their kills, they'll mob and harass it, to the point of blood being drawn.

Q: Do they really laugh?
A: When excited, especially when being attacked by another hyena, a spotted hyena will make a giggling noise. Spotted hyenas also make other noises, including a long, manic whoop best transcribed as "oooooh-WHUP!." (Here's [a poor-quality AU file] of their cries.) None of these sounds indicate humor as humans know it.

Q: How fast can they run?
A: Dr. Frank thinks their top speed is approximately 30 miles an hour.

Q: Will hyenas eat each other?
A: Adult hyenas of the same clan don't normally kill and eat each other. Hans Kruuk records an incident in which hyenas ate the carcass of another hyena of a different clan with whom they had fought earlier.

Q: Is it true that hyenas can change sexes?
A: No mammal can do that. What is true is that the female hyena's genitals look just like the male's: she has a huge clitoris she can erect at will and even has a sack of fibrous tissue that looks like testicles.

Q: My God, why?
A: No one knows for sure. We know what it's used for: the hyena greeting ceremony. Each hyena sniffs and licks the other's genitals and erects its own penis or clitoris. It's like dogs sniffing each other's rumps. Erection is voluntary, like raising your arm.

Q: You said the females are dominant on another page. Don't the males resent this?
A: Sometimes several males will "bait" a single female, standing around her, barking at and even nipping her. She lies down defensively and takes it, only biting back when they get close. Sometimes this baiting is serious: Kruuk saw one female with blood on her legs afterward. Other times the baiting will stop and the female will get up and walk away as if nothing had happened. If her female relatives hear the racket, they may stop the baiting. Whether this is the male equivalent of resistance to sexism, only hyenas know. Dr. Laurence Frank states that this happens when a female comes into heat and several males are following her. Dr. Mills states that other females may join in.

Q: It sounds as if hyenas don't get along very well, even if they don't eat each other.
A: Kruuk thought adult hyena society remarkably peaceful within the clan, but Dr. Frank states that female hyenas behave very aggressively toward each other. Hyenas from different clans war with each other in pitched mass battles. These fights seldom cause injuries, but occasionally one or even several hyenas are killed.

Q: Whoah! You said "adult hyena society." Surely the cubs don't fight?
A: Cubs fight viciously, often quite literally from the moment they're born. BBC's Carnivore! series has gruesome footage illustrating this. A hyena has given birth to three cubs, and two are already fighting savagely -- until they notice the third, still being licked dry, and attack it. As many as 25 percent of all cubs may die from such fights before adulthood. The worst fighting is between two sisters in the same litter. As soon as she can, the stronger female will kill the weaker. Unlike most carnivores, hyenas are born with their eyes open and teeth functional.

Q: Doesn't the mother stop this?
A: Occasionally she tries, but it's a losing battle. Also, cubs dig a network of smaller tunnels from the birthing den, tunnels into which the adults don't fit, and will kill each other there. Or, the weaker cub may be so intimidated that it doesn't dare come out to nurse and so starves to death.

Q: How long does she raise them?
A: The gestation period is 110 days, but the length of time she nurses them varies a lot depending on how dominant she is. The cubs of high-ranking mothers get to eat from the kills at a much younger age than those of low-ranking mothers, so are weaned earlier -- perhaps as early as at 8 months. The cubs of a low-ranking mother may have to nurse up to a year and a half.

Q: Do they mate for life, like wolves?
A: No. Mating is a one-time thing. The females apparently will only mate with males who were not born in the clan, sometimes even with nomadic males not attached to any clan. Males are usually transients anyway, wandering from their birth clans and often moving from clan to clan.

Q: Will hyenas eat people?
A: Dead people, yes, just as they would any other dead animal. Hyenas usually run from humans, which is why scientists studying them stay in cars and watch them through binoculars or video cameras. But in some areas, hyenas occasionally bite or even eat people, especially if they find them sleeping outside at night, according to Dr. Frank.

Q: Are there any zoos where I can go see hyenas?
A: Most zoos don't care to display hyenas, because there still isn't much public demand. People still think of hyenas as cowardly, ugly scavengers. If more people get the facts, and zoos get more requests, that may change. I'll try to keep a list of zoos that do have them (in halfway decent conditions that allow them to live a clan life):

The St. Louis Zoo in Missouri has a small clan of three female spotted hyenas in its River's Edge exhibit. So does Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, in its "Edge of Africa" exhibit.

Q: All this stuff has made me think about getting myself a pet hyena. Do you know where I can get one, and what they need in captivity?
(Try not to snicker: I've had four emails like this already.)
I do not recommend any wild animal as a pet, much less a carnivore, much less a large carnivore. More often than not, it ends up with the animal suffering terribly and even being killed, and sometimes with human beings being mauled or killed as well. (And think about the legal repercussions if a child reaches in through the fence to pet your hyena and gets bitten...) For these reasons, I will not tell you how to get a pet hyena. Please don't ask.

Q: Do hyenas have any redeeming features at all?
A: The notion that Nature must justify itself to humanity is a holdover from creationism, I think. By contrasting the peculiar social behavior of hyenas with other social animals, including primates, we may learn more about ourselves and why we became social, and the evolutionary reasons for male dominance and female dominance. They also keep their prey animals' numbers under control like any other carnivore, and help rid the plains of carcasses. Finally, hyenas are interesting and have a basic right to exist, just like any other living thing.

i didn't see the part where people take them fro assholes

because they always laughin about how they did some shit

while the animal is layin there dyin

Cerebus said:

imago said:

I'm finding this thread very fascinating!

I love reading about all animals, but my favorites are top-of-the-food-chain predators.

For anyone who is going to misunderstand or miscomprehend the purpose of this thread,

it's not to make any type of moral judgement or to seperate human behavior from animal

behavior--I'm in the school that believes we're just animals. The purpose is just to show

the shocking reality of nature in general.

I just saw a video of a wild dog killing a young kudu. Lawd hammercy.

All you've got to do is watch or read the news for a couple weeks to know how violent the human animal is.

Shit, all I need to do is tell a Thai woman she looks tan to discover how violent the human animal is.

If you're shocked about hyenas, do you know about HONEY BADGERS? Honey badgers are some scary-ass mofos. I didn't know this until a while ago when my friend told me about them, and then my daughter had a reading comprehension passage on them, and then they were featured in "Wild Kratts" ... it was like "honey badger this, honey badger that" for quite a while. When my friend first asked me what do I think honey badgers are like, I said "don't know, I guess they eat honey and waddle around." Oh man, was I wrong! Lion cubs mimic the honey badger stripe so that when it's sleeping in the grass, larger predators like hyenas will think it's a honey badger and stay the f away! You google honey badger on YT and you'll see what I mean.

imago said:

Cerebus said:

All you've got to do is watch or read the news for a couple weeks to know how violent the human animal is.

Shit, all I need to do is tell a Thai woman she looks tan to discover how violent the human animal is.

artist76 said:

If you're shocked about hyenas, do you know about HONEY BADGERS? Honey badgers are some scary-ass mofos. I didn't know this until a while ago when my friend told me about them, and then my daughter had a reading comprehension passage on them, and then they were featured in "Wild Kratts" ... it was like "honey badger this, honey badger that" for quite a while. When my friend first asked me what do I think honey badgers are like, I said "don't know, I guess they eat honey and waddle around." Oh man, was I wrong! Lion cubs mimic the honey badger stripe so that when it's sleeping in the grass, larger predators like hyenas will think it's a honey badger and stay the f away! You google honey badger on YT and you'll see what I mean.

Yes! Honey badgers are amazing.

If you really want to be grossed out though check out the youtube vidoes of giant centipedes eating mice or snakes. UGH

I actually like big bugs. I've held vinageroons, millipedes and big ass cockroaches and the East Bay Vivarium.

http://www.eastbayvivarium.com/

Cerebus said:

I actually like big bugs. I've held vinageroons, millipedes and big ass cockroaches and the East Bay Vivarium.

http://www.eastbayvivarium.com/

Ugh, the whole exoskeleton, compound eyes thing freaks me out!

By the way, how can people eat lobster? They're related to the pill bug - yuck!

But honey badger don't care - he'll eat anything!

imago said:

Dren5 said:

...Did you live next door to Wally and the Beav?

I don't understand the reference.

"Leave It to Beaver"?

imago said:

OK, so I've been watching these videos of wild dogs (painted wild dogs) and hyenas hunting

and killing technqiques, and I am astounded at the efficiency with which the kill.

But mostly, I'm shocked by just how cruel nature actually is. I personally have always thought

that the Universe is tipped towards pain and suffering, and that all life succumbs to it

in one form or another regardless of how beautiful or pleasurable stretches of life are.

But humans have the luxury of dying in beds...surrounded by family.

It dawned on me that most animals, aquatic or land...mammal, amphibian,

or reptile....omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore meet their ends much more

violently.

This is a truly disturbing video, so do not click unless you are able to handle

violence, blood, and ....agonizing death.

NSFW (sort of)...VERY VIOLENT CONTENT

It reminds me of Perry Ferrell's words, "Of course this land is dangerous, all of

god's animals are capably murderous... "

Disney had a documentary film out last year called "big cats" or "wild cats" or something like that, where they are shown hunting down prey. A friend took her daughter to see it at El Capitan Theatre, it was in conjunction with the rerelease of "The Lion King." It was not what they were expecting.

Btw, who else remembers "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" - I was basically in diapers watching animals dismembering and killing each other on that show.