grizzly
Junior Member Rank 1
Posts: 38 
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Post by grizzly on Jun 7, 2013 18:12:50 GMT 5
I have read the journals of Lewis and Clark. I have read the legends of Old Ephraim and Old Mose. Here can be found many tales of the incredible durability and endurance of the grizzly bear. I have also read tales about the punishment that a spotted hyena has been known to endure from lion attacks. Is it true that some predators are more capable of surviving horrendous injuries than others?
If you have no problem, I broadened the category to include other animals and I combined the two very similar threads.
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Post by Runic on Jun 8, 2013 8:44:43 GMT 5
Yep.
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Post by Venomous Dragon on Jun 8, 2013 9:51:04 GMT 5
Ive never heard of any mammal surviving in the wild with most of either its top or bottom jaw ripped off but Crocs seem to manage with it all the time.
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Post by Vodmeister on Jun 8, 2013 12:03:39 GMT 5
If we look at specifically terrestrial mammals; Hyenas, Bears, and Big Cats have to be given a lot of credit for durability. However, as Venomous Dragon has stated, all of them pale in comparison to the freakish punishment tolerance of some large reptiles; such as Crocodiles, who shrug off ripped open jaws.
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Post by Runic on Jun 8, 2013 13:09:15 GMT 5
Or monitor lizard who have survived with multiple lost limbs.
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Post by Venomous Dragon on Jun 8, 2013 14:12:36 GMT 5
Or monitor lizard who have survived with multiple lost limbs. Loosing a leg doesnt seem to be enough to end most species of lizard. |
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Post by Runic on Jun 8, 2013 14:47:18 GMT 5
Or monitor lizard who have survived with multiple lost limbs. Loosing a leg doesnt seem to be enough to end most species of lizard. I'm talking multiple limbs |
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grizzly
Junior Member Rank 1
Posts: 38
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Post by grizzly on Jun 8, 2013 15:16:45 GMT 5
OK. Mammals cannot compete with reptiles. Specifically ( though I forgot to specify ) I was referring to the order Carnivora.
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grizzly
Junior Member Rank 1
Posts: 38
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Post by grizzly on Jun 8, 2013 15:22:11 GMT 5
If we look at specifically terrestrial mammals; Hyenas, Bears, and Big Cats have to be given a lot of credit for durability. However, as Venomous Dragon has stated, all of them pale in comparison to the freakish punishment tolerance of some large reptiles; such as Crocodiles, who shrug off ripped open jaws.
shaggygod.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=newworld
The, during the winter in North Dakota, the Hidatsas had told Lewis and Clark about there’s this ferocious animal that lives where you’re gonna be going. It’s a big bear, a bear the size that you’ve never seen, you know. Some of our warriors have killed and look, we’ve got the claws, they’re big claws aren’t they, and it’s a real mark of honor for us to kill one. Well, as they’re going west into Montana they start seeing some big bear tracks, they think, “Hey, this must be it.” But they’re more curious than frightened of it. And, as they came into what’s now Montana, they saw a grizzly bear, and it was big, but they shot it and killed it. And that night Lewis was writing in his journal, “Well, you know, I can understand how the Indians with, armed as they are with just some bows and arrows might be frightened of this monster. But in the hands of an experienced woodsman with a good rifle, they’re nothing to be afraid of.” Well, about 2 days later, they come across another grizzly bear and they fire 8 or 9 shots into it can’t kill it. It chases them off the, off the Plain and into the river. They meet another one who chases some men up a tree. Everywhere they’re going, they’re meeting these big grizzly bears that they just have trouble killing. And finally, Lewis sits down one night to write in his journal, he says, “I find the curiosity of our men with respect to this animal is pretty much satisfied.”
"For the instances of this we are indebted almost wholly to the narrative of the Travels of Captains Lewis and Clarke, whose statements are no doubt founded in truth, although it may be suspected that they require to be received with some grains at least of allowance. According to these gentlemen one bear which had received five shots in his lungs, and five other wounds in various parts of his body, swam a considerable distance to a sand bank in the river, and survived more than twenty minutes; another that had been shot through the centre of the lungs, pursued at full speed the man by whom the wound was inflicted for half a mile, then returned more than twice that distance, dug himself a bed two feet deep and five feet long, and was perfectly alive two hours after he received the wound; and a third, although actually shot through the heart, ran at his usual pace nearly a quarter of a mile before he fell. There is no chance, they add, of killing him by a single shot, unless the ball goes directly through the brain; a single hunter runs consequently no little risk in venturing to attack an animal upon whom the most dangerous wounds, if not instantaneously fatal, produce no obvious immediate effects."
Hahn D. 2003. The Tower Menagerie. London: Simon and Schuster.
*There are a great many more such accounts not only in historical America, but in the modern news.
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Post by creature386 on Jun 8, 2013 15:37:09 GMT 5
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grizzly
Junior Member Rank 1
Posts: 38
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Post by grizzly on Jun 8, 2013 17:19:54 GMT 5
This is a good read - www.flickr.com/photos/31956205@N02/6350554784 Native American tribes sympatric to brown bears often viewed them with a mixture of awe and fear. North American brown bears were so feared by the Natives that they were rarely hunted, especially alone. When Natives hunted grizzlies, the act was done with the same preparation and ceremoniality as intertribal warfare, and was never done except with a company of 4–10 warriors. The tribe members who dealt the killing blow were highly esteemed among their compatriots. Californian Indians actively avoided prime bear habitat, and would not allow their young men to hunt alone, for fear of bear attacks. During the Spanish colonial period, some tribes, instead of hunting grizzlies themselves, would seek aid from European colonists to deal with problem bears. Many authors in the American west wrote of Natives or voyagers with lacerated faces and missing noses or eyes due to attacks from grizzlies.[7] Within Yellowstone National Park, injuries caused by grizzly attacks in developed areas averaged approximately 1 per year during the 1930s through to the 1950s, though it increased to 4 per year during the 1960s. They then decreased to 1 injury every 2 years (0.5/year) during the 1970s. Between 1980 and 2002, there have been only 2 human injuries caused by grizzly bears in a developed area. However, although grizzly attacks were rare in the backcountry before 1970, the number of attacks increased to an average of approximately 1 per year during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.[56] Before the invention of the repeater rifle, few men would dare to hunt grizzly bears other than in groups of accomplished marksmen. The grizzly was then not only difficult to kill, but much more aggressive than today's grizzly bear. The repeater rifle removed the 'bad bears' from the genetic pool. The reason for the grizzly's aggression can be found here: animalsversesanimals.yuku.com/topic/4052/Pleistocene-grizzly-vs-Smilodon-fatalis#.UbMh6-dJPMA |
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Post by Vodmeister on Jun 8, 2013 23:52:00 GMT 5
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LeopJag
Member
Panthera kryptikos (cryptic, evasive panther)
Posts: 440
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Post by LeopJag on Jun 9, 2013 9:15:12 GMT 5
Wonder where you suppose mustelids stack up in terms of this among carnivorans? it took an adult leopardess about an hour to kill an old toothless female honey badger and in another account it took some time for a young lion coalition to kill an hb....the differences in size between a leopardess and an hb would be greater than that between a spotted hyena and a lion.
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Post by Venomous Dragon on Jun 9, 2013 11:08:47 GMT 5
Wonder where you suppose mustelids stack up in terms of this among carnivorans? it took an adult leopardess about an hour to kill an old toothless female honey badger and in another account it took some time for a young lion coalition to kill an hb....the differences in size between a leopardess and an hb would be greater than that between a spotted hyena and a lion. and yet cats kill weasel were I live as If they were mice, badgers are durable but that doesnt make the rest of the mustelids durable as well. |
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Post by creature386 on Jun 9, 2013 14:27:39 GMT 5
I know that most of such accounts are freak occurrences (like the bear surviving gunshots), but I'm still every time surprised when I see something like that. |
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