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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 2, 2021 8:30:28 GMT 5
While you guys (and by that I really mean creature386 ) are waiting for my reviews for Planet Dinosaur, why not enjoy a quick review of another show in the meantime? It's the show that probably kickstarted the entire animal vs animal online community, including our own forum: Animal Face-Off. Full episodes are actually now viewable on YouTube and Internet Archives (although, I don't know how long they'll be there for until they're taken down), so now you can see the show in its full over-the-top wackiness and nonsensical crap glory. However, not all the episodes are available, so I couldn't start by reviewing the first episode, which was "Saltwater Crocodile vs Great White Shark". Instead, I had to start with "Elephant vs Rhinoceros". Enjoy. Directory:- Elephant vs Rhino (this post) - Wolf vs Cougar- Lion vs Tiger- Saltwater Crocodile vs Great White SharkElephant vs Rhino Image source– The white rhino and African (bush) elephant are indeed two of the largest land animals on Earth. There’s only one problem…the bush elephant is almost three times heavier. This matchup was one-sided from the start. – “ They can ram that point home”. Elephants. And rhinos. Do not. Ram (at least not in the sense of charging at full speed and colliding with their heads/weapons). They’re not f*cking mounted knights with lances. Unless the narrator, Gabe Doran, didn’t mean that literally (but it’s possible he did). – After Doran tells us that the results of aggression (between the two) are often fatal, we get two actual snapshots of outcomes between the two species’ interactions. The first is a gored rhino, the other is a rhino standing next to some pachyderm carcass. I can’t tell what it is; part of it is decayed. Dead rhino? – An elephant’s trunk can be a weapon…up to a certain point. There’s a recorded incident where a veterinarian was crushed to death by an elephant trunk ( Vuletic & Byard, 2013), which is no surprise. Against another large animal it might help to provide an extra grasp as its wrestling with its head, but it’s also very vulnerable to getting injured. – “ Tactics: stomp and gore”. Oddly, I’ve never known an elephant that literally stomped on a rhino with its feet. I certainly don’t doubt it could do it, but crushing them with the head or goring them is how they usually kill rhinos. – “ …they can only push and puncture, basically”. And it’s going up against something almost three times bigger than itself. Oof. – Doran’s stats for the elephant are 8 tons and 13 feet tall. Your average male African bush elephant is more like 3.2 meters tall at the shoulder (~10.5 feet) and 6 tonnes. An 8 tonne elephant is a very large individual (and an 8 ton – or 7.2 tonne – individual, if we take the words literally, is still larger than average), and a 13 foot tall elephant is pretty much record-sized ( Larramendi, 2016). – Wrong, wrong, wrong. The idea that elephant trunks have 40,000, 100,000, or 150,000 muscles is an often-repeated misconception. That is the number of muscle fascicles, or subunits, if you will. The actual number of muscles is around seven ( link) (or six, depending on who you ask). “ The trunk is both tool and weapon”, immediately shows an elephant shoving a wildebeest calf away. – Elephant tusks can reach 7 feet in length (even longer than that, actually), but these days this is not the norm, especially given how poaching has led to selection against large tusks. The late Satao, for instance, was considered one of the rare great tuskers with tusks over 2 meters long. It was probably way more common for elephants to have giant tusks a century or so ago, though. One thing I should note is that super long elephant tusks are not necessarily an advantage in combat. In fact, it’s very probably the opposite, and elephants likely follow alternative mating strategies. Those with shorter tusks that are more practical for combat can, of course, fight, while those with super long tusks most likely use them as a visual signal of fitness to females ( link). In fact, elephants with shorter, more broken tusks are actually more aggressive than their longer tusked counterparts ( link), which at least makes intuitive sense. – How much does all of this animatronic creation cost? Dear god. – Their metal elephant skull weighs 674 lbs. An actual bull elephant skull would weigh roughly ~350-415 lbs ( Byers & Ugan, 2005). – A 180 lb elephant tusk is a very big tusk. Again, not the norm. – The narrator literally tells us that rhinos have been reported gored to death by elephants. Elephant wins, k den, show’s over. ... trudges back over to seat– Interesting how one of the aluminum tusks is actually broken at the tip by goring the giant plastic water tank. – The show’s cast have some playful banter for the camera about how their animal’s totally gonna kick the ass of the other. – The stated weight for the male white rhino (2.5 tons) actually isn’t far off, at least as far as metric tons go (it’s 2.3 tonnes). – The stated horn length (4 feet), though, is, again, above average. The world record white rhino horn is 150 cm in length (almost 5 feet) ( world record rhino horns). The average white rhino horn is, depending on who you ask, 60 or 90 cm ( link 1, link 2). – “ …can the rhino counter the elephant’s size and strength?” No.– “ Tactics: stab and gore". That's literally the same f*cking thing. – One thing I will say: as expensive and laborious as making these animatronics must be, handling one of those must still be pretty cool. I wonder where this show’s animatronics are lying around now. – 352 lb skull? An actual white rhino’s whole head doesn’t even weigh that much, lol. It’s actually ~116 kg (~256 lbs) ( Witmer & Ridgely, 2008). – >red glowing eyes for emphasis – The whole animatronic is only a ton, though. Huh. – “…[elephants] also lift and push. It’s a favorite tactic.” That’s actually not wrong. In elephant fights, musth>size>tusks ( Chelliah & Sukumar, 2013). – They show footage of an elephant lifting its rival off the ground. Uhhh…doesn’t quite look like it to me…? – They’re using psi as a unit of power. Oi vey… – You know, it would be interesting to know how efficient the neck muscles of an elephant and a rhino are in lifting something. I’m just not very trusting of the tests done here. – Sometimes we’re shown skeletonized models of the animals duking it out. After what would have been a commercial break back then, we’re briefly shown a skeletonized rhino attempting to gore a skeletonized elephant with its invisible horn (since the rhino’s horn has no bone, and thus isn’t actually a part of its skeleton). I can’t help but chuckle at that. – Elephants do seem to sometimes swiftly smash their faces against each other, at least at close quarters. By no means muskox or bighorn sheep style charging and ramming (which they’re not built for), but yeah. – “ Psychological profile: thinker and tactician” (elephant). What the f*ck is this shit?? – “ Psychological profile: aggressive and ill-tempered” (rhino). They emphasize the rhino’s aggression here. However, the white rhino (the species they’re using for this fight) is reportedly less aggressive than the sympatric black rhino, to the point where they’re more likely to run from a threat (if you take this conservationist’s word for it). – Rhinos almost certainly do not charge at 30 mph. The biomechanics of white rhinoceros locomotion have only been studied once, and sequences have shown white rhinos running up to 7.5 m/s ( Alexander & Pond, 1992). Rhinos are certainly more athletic than elephants, though, so I’ll give the show that. – Metal rhino skull that weighs a lot more than a real one (and is most certainly far stronger) rams into a car…needless to say no, I don’t think this is reflective of whether or not a real rhino could do the same without damaging its own skull and neck. – They then decide to have the elephant animatronic crush a few cars. I mean, hey, why not have some fun (if they weren’t already)? – Okay, on to the actual (poor CGI) fight. The rhinoceros is the aggressor of the fight, getting ready to charge upon seeing the elephant. Ha, it honestly thinks it can win. – Surprisingly, the narrator provides commentary during the fight, something I usually haven’t heard until after they show the fight and go over what happened. He tells us the bull elephant is looking for a mate and is at “maximum aggression”. So I guess the elephant is in musth. – They look so awkward charging at each other lol. – Okay so, the part that bugged me the most. The elephant gores the rhino’s left side. But when we cut to the elephant backing up to gore it again, the rhino’s goring wounds are on its right side. Animation error? – At this point, this isn’t even really a fight. The rhino does literally nothing for the remainder of the scenario. The elephant gores it again (breaking a tusk in the process), topples the rhino over, and places its front feet on it to crush it to death. – “ Why did the elephant in our scenario win?” Because it’s almost three f*cking times heavier. Well, at least they got the winner right? – “ agile headbutt” – “ That was not a fair fight.” ~Dr. Ellen Rogers on white rhino vs bush elephant. Indeed. Final verdict:I guess rhino vs elephant may not be so obvious of a question to the average viewer who knows little about animals. AFO portrays this fight as a serious clash of titans, where it's unclear as to who would win between an elephant's size and strength and the rhino's speed and agility. And you know, that's showbiz, so I can't get mad at them for that. But if you're like me, and you know even just a bit about either animal here, then you'd know that this is a size mismatch. The elephant's size>>>the rhino's athleticism. Of all living elephants, only the forest elephant matches the white rhino in size. No points for getting the outcome of this right. Concept: 5/10 Fairness: 3/10 Factuality: 6/10 Reasonable outcome: 10/10 Overall score: 6/10 Awards: |
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Post by creature386 on Oct 3, 2021 2:54:10 GMT 5
You're actually doing this. Well, this is going to be fun.
While you guys (and by that I really mean creature386 ) Hey, Life liked your (and my) critic-posts, too. And Hondo is there. And, statistically speaking, for every member that interacts with content, there are 99 lurkers. So, judging from statistics, you might have a hundred or so readers (seriously though, the view counts on our review threads aren't bad, they are roughly on par with deviantART from what I can see). It's the show that probably kickstarted the entire animal vs animal online community, including our own forum: Animal Face-Off. We truly have a proud legacy, don't we? While I'm not trying to demonize the concept of AVA (after all, that's what our website is built on), I think there's a reason I liked it best during my tweenage years. After all, I found AFO somewhat cool back then (even if I already knew it was stupid). – The white rhino and African (bush) elephant are indeed two of the largest land animals on Earth. There’s only one problem…the bush elephant is almost three times heavier. This matchup was one-sided from the start. I wonder if we should take a leaf out of SpaceBattle's book here. Over there, they hand out the Vlad Tepes awards for threads that are complete and utter mismatches and we could rate the episodes similarly. Unfortunately, it's already clear from the start that the sperm whale vs giant squid episode deserves that award, though maybe lesser ones (like the xeeleestomp award) are still available for the other episodes. Or we could just make up our own mismatch ranking system. – Doran’s stats for the elephant are 8 tons and 13 feet tall. Your average male African bush elephant is more like 3.2 meters tall at the shoulder (~10.5 feet) and 6 tonnes. An 8 tonne elephant is a very large individual (and an 8 ton – or 7.2 tonne – individual, if we take the words literally, is still larger than average), and a 13 foot tall elephant is pretty much record-sized ( Larramendi, 2016). I believed a loooot of misinformation from this documentary in my teenage years (mostly bite-force related), but I'm glad that their elephant exaggeration didn't stick. – The show’s cast have some playful banter for the camera about how their animal’s totally gonna kick the ass of the other. I totally enjoyed that as a kid. Probably how the show tried to sell science as "cool" and I'd say that, at least for younger audiences, it worked. – “ Tactics: stab and gore". That's literally the same f*cking thing. – They’re using psi as a unit of power. Oi vey… Since I watched this in German, I didn't pick this up, but now it's good to know that I'm not the only one who got misinformed by this documentary. – “ Psychological profile: thinker and tactician” (elephant). What the f*ck is this shit?? lol That reads like it's part of some RPG character sheet. It's especially funny considering how the elephant is at "maximum aggression" during the battle. I guess elephants like Hawthrone's pliosaurs and only think about killing. But seriously, even when I was 12/13, I had a hard time understanding why this episode even existed. Now, my guess was that they absolutely had to have a "clash of the titans" episode and there aren't so many animals one can pair an African elephant with (rhino vs hippo would have been more interesting, but it wouldn't have had the same "clash of the titan"-vibe; plus, they needed the hippo for another mismatch). |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 3, 2021 7:22:08 GMT 5
I wonder if we should take a leaf out of SpaceBattle's book here. Over there, they hand out the Vlad Tepes awards for threads that are complete and utter mismatches and we could rate the episodes similarly. Unfortunately, it's already clear from the start that the sperm whale vs giant squid episode deserves that award, though maybe lesser ones (like the xeeleestomp award) are still available for the other episodes. Or we could just make up our own mismatch ranking system. Sure. Actually, I can include that in my final verdicts here. I just need a bit more explanation on what these awards entail, and if there are any others I should be aware of. I think the time where I fully and unironically enjoyed it was when I first discovered it. That's when I was a little kid, and thus much dumber than a tween. By my tweens and early teens, I started realizing the stupidity of it. I predicted the elephant would win this when I first watched it way back when, but it was only because I remembered hearing about how elephants killed rhinos before. I didn't understand why until I got older as an early teen. If only forest elephants lived with white rhinos, then at least it wouldn't be so bad (and in that case, I'd actually put my money on the rhino). But yeah, a hippo would have probably been the least one-sided yet viable match for the white rhino, even if it's less of a behemoth battle. I had no idea bull sharks even interacted with hippos when I first heard of AFO, and only recently did I find accounts where they have irl. I was baffled by that match even when I was a kid. Yeah, you're right. |
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Post by creature386 on Oct 3, 2021 20:30:13 GMT 5
I wonder if we should take a leaf out of SpaceBattle's book here. Over there, they hand out the Vlad Tepes awards for threads that are complete and utter mismatches and we could rate the episodes similarly. Unfortunately, it's already clear from the start that the sperm whale vs giant squid episode deserves that award, though maybe lesser ones (like the xeeleestomp award) are still available for the other episodes. Or we could just make up our own mismatch ranking system. Sure. Actually, I can include that in my final verdicts here. I just need a bit more explanation on what these awards entail, and if there are any others I should be aware of. Most of the Spacebattles awards for mismatches are sci-fi themed in some way* ("Xeelee stomp" refers to the Xeelee Sequence novels by Stephen Baxter, for example, while "Bolo stomp" refers to a series of military sci-fi novels). I think we could theme ours after large and heavy animals. "Sauropod stomp", "whale stomp", "elephant stomp" (I think we already know the right award for this episode...), "hippo stomp", this sort of stuff. (Funnily enough, there does seem to be a toucan stomp award, though I don't get the logic behind it). The Vlad Tepes award is given to mismatches so bad that they qualify as crimes against humanity, or, alternatively, mismatches so one-sided that Vlad Tepes would approve of the cruelty towards the outmatched combatant. I wonder if we could keep that or if it's too pointlessly edgy (re-theming it into something animal cruelty related, e.g. "Michael Vick award" would be only even more edgy). That being said, edgy or not, the squid vs sperm whale episode 100% deserves it.
*Interestingly enough, this award is also being used regualrly on r/whowouldwin which is not explicitly sci-fi themed (like SB), although there's a lot of overlap between it and SB. Still, I'd prefer animal-themed awards over sci-fi ones, for obvious reasons.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 4, 2021 2:23:05 GMT 5
Okay, I edited the OP's final verdict with an award. I also added something of a numbered score. creature386 |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 6, 2021 4:30:02 GMT 5
Wolf vs Cougar- “ The cougar is North America’s lion, and just as fierce.” In that it’s also a formidable apex predator of a felid, then yeah. Obviously not by a literal, direct comparison (giving Gabe Doran the benefit of the doubt). - “ The alpha male wolf: nothing scares Mother Nature’s leader of the pack.” Except maybe a much bigger and very formidable animal…? Also, “alpha” wolf is misleading as a term; it implies the position is achieved through physical dominance, but most wolves that lead a pack get to that position simply by mating and/or giving birth to pups, which then form the pack ( link). To my knowledge, a cougar can indeed weigh 200 pounds, but this is a weight achieved by particularly large males. The average is smaller; from a bunch of data collected on a Discord server I’m on, the total average is ~60 kg for several populations. I believe it still has a size advantage over the average northwestern wolf, though, which weighs 45-55 kg on average. - Just so we’re clear, I would actually still favor the cougar even if they weighed the same. If nothing else, I think the cougar’s grappling ability is just too much. The grey wolf doesn’t exactly strike me as a particularly heavily built carnivoran either. - A hit rate of 85%. But for what prey? All prey in general or just a specific species? - One thing I noticed while watching the full episodes is that the people creating the biomechanical animatronics were constrained in the amount of time they had. Here, they had three days to create the aluminum cougar skull. But I don’t quite understand why. I understand they had to get filming rolling and all, but is that really enough to explain why time was so constrained? - Gabe Doran says the aluminum cougar skull has to be mobile too. Umm…why??? Why does it need to be mounted on a remote-controlled vehicle? I’ll take a guess: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool- They go on to test their mecha cougar on things that supposedly approximate the density of flesh and bone…like a squash (but later a coconut). Okay, okay, they wanna have their fun. - The cougar’s bite force is estimated to be 300 lbf. The impression I’m getting is that this estimate is a dry skull estimate. One paper I found says that the maximum recorded bilateral bite force in the cougar is ~1,837 N, which is actually equal to ~413 lbf, particularly at the interdental gap in front of the carnassial teeth. At this same jaw position, the grey wolf bites with a force of 1,412 N ( Therrien, 2005) (I don’t trust the figure for the spotted hyena’s bite force cited in this paper, though). I’m very well aware, however, that there are numerous studies on carnivoran bite force, not all of which use the same methods (or even methods I trust that much). Likewise, the cougar’s real fighting/killing teeth are the canines, where bite force would be somewhat less. So yeah, I could see a cougar biting with a force of somewhere between 300-400 lbs at the canines. - “ But no one knows how it uses that bite to hunt. In the wild, the evidence is quickly reduced to scraps of bone.” Or you could, you know, observe a cougar hunting in the wild and see where it bites and how it implements its mouth…? - The folks finally get on with testing the mecha cougar on an actual animal (goat) carcass (which they got from a meat processing plant) and have it bite the neck. It breaks the vertebrae. Not surprising. - Hit rate of 8%. Again, for specific prey or prey in general? - Their CGI rendering of the wolf’s skeleton looks horrendous. - “ The wolf’s jaw is three times longer.” Is it, though? The wolf’s jaw is definitely longer proportionately, I’ll give you that, but three times longer? Here are a few pics that show how their jaws/crania compare ( 1, 2, 3). The narrator claims that with more surface area, the wolf has a tighter grip with its jaws. While this makes intuitive sense, carnivorans don’t really make use of the postcanine teeth (certainly not the carnassials) for predation or combat, so I’m not sure this is why the wolf’s jaws are relatively longer. I suspect it’s more because longer jaws=more clearance between the upper and lower canines when the mouth is open. In other words, wider gape. Since the wolf’s jaws are its only means of grabbing onto prey, this makes sense. - The wolf’s jaws are indeed better suited for gripping, but that’s more because canids have more curved canine teeth than felids. Canid canines act more like hooks to hold onto prey, while felids have relatively slender, sharp canines that act like daggers ( Pollock et al., 2021). Also, their incisors are much more prominent and arranged in an arc-shaped arcade, which also contribute to their ability to grapple with prey using their jaws. - “ The wolf’s zygomatic arches are nearly twice the size of the cougar’s.” * looks at images linked above. Yeah, not really buying that. They estimate the wolf would bite with a force of 500 lbs, which, given the figure I cited above, I’m not sure about. It looks like the cougar would actually be the one that bites harder. This actually makes sense to me, since A) the cougar is bigger on average, B) the cougar’s jaws are proportionately shorter, and C) in conjunction with point B, the cougar’s skull is not too dissimilar in overall size in comparison to the wolf’s. - Their mecha wolf manages to make what would have been a single lethal bite on a dead goat’s neck. Again, not really surprised. - They go somewhat into the momentum of their charges, and later a bit into the additional weapons of both animals. For the cougar, the additional weapons are obviously its claws (perhaps the biggest thing separating it from the wolf). The wolf’s additional weapon is the wolf pack…which is outright stated will not be factored into this fight, since it’s a 1v1. So for the wolf, they might as well have just listed “none” under additional weapons. - Okay, now on to the fight! The cougar finds the wolf eating a carcass…and actually walks away. This fight could have easily been avoided had the wolf not attacked. The wolf lands the first attack by biting on the cougar’s ankle. In real life, that could have done some serious damage that could end up biting the cougar in the ass later in the fight. Yes, the cougar turns around to try to attack the wolf, but imagine the wolf violently pulling back with its hooked, laterally compressed canine teeth, and shaking side to side. The cougar got off lightly here. - The wolf charges again head-on, and ends up biting one of the cougar’s paws. Realistically, I think it’s significantly more likely the cougar would end up grabbing the wolf with its paws, but again, a bite to a paw could put the cougar in serious trouble if that ever happened. - The cougar is then seen on its back. But it grabs the wolf with its paws and rakes its body with the claws on its hind feet. I feel like animal media tends to forget that cats can use their hind foot claws as weapons. Granted, the rear claws of cats are certainly not specialized killing weapons (they’re actually blunter and less recurved than the claws on the front paws, which in a way makes them more like the claws of dogs), and definitely wouldn’t be the most important weapons against another carnivoran. The cougar throws the wolf up into the air and some feet back (wut). It then lands a fatal neck bite, although by that point the wolf is motionless and already looks like it’s dead. - Oh you hear that? It’s the wolf pack that wasn’t added into this fight. I think this is the only fight in this series where things don’t end entirely well for the victor. Final verdict: Not too bad of a fight. Cougar vs wolf might well be interesting to discuss to those who aren’t too familiar with either animal. Personally, I think the fight has a clear winner (cougar), but at least it’s not the mismatch that some of these other fights are. The way the cougar ended up beating the wolf, though, was a bit weird. The weirdest thing that struck me about this episode, though, was that the testing was primarily focused on the jaws of the two animals. While this might make sense for the wolf (whose only weapon its its mouth), the cougar’s biggest asset in this fight are arguably its forelimbs, which are used to bring its mouth to bear in the first place. Yet the claws of the cougar are given relatively little screen time when they show all the testing. And when it is shown, it’s shown in the context of what kind of damage they can do instead of how well they can keep a hold on another animal (the latter is the primary purpose of cat claws). Also not sure how much the momentum tests are worth here. It’s just kind of weird to imagine these two starting the fight by charging at each other; I feel like the fight would be more of a close quarters scrap than anything else. Concept: 6/10 Fairness: 6/10 Factuality: 6.5/10 Reasonable outcome: 9/10 Overall score: ~6.9/10
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Post by creature386 on Oct 6, 2021 20:47:51 GMT 5
- “ The cougar is North America’s lion, and just as fierce.” In that it’s also a formidable apex predator of a felid, then yeah. Obviously not by a literal, direct comparison (giving Gabe Doran the benefit of the doubt). But this is a wildlife documentary aimed at little boys who just want to see violence? How are we supposed to sell it if not every species we show is equally hyperbolic. - “ The alpha male wolf: nothing scares Mother Nature’s leader of the pack.” Except maybe a much bigger and very formidable animal…? Also, “alpha” wolf is misleading as a term; it implies the position is achieved through physical dominance, but most wolves that lead a pack get to that position simply by mating and/or giving birth to pups, which then form the pack ( link). You know, one of the more hilarious complains I see in the SJW Twitter/Tumblr bubble is the notion that wildlife documentaries project toxic masculinity onto predatory animals by always making them look fierce and angry. This is obviously nonsense, but even a stopped clock shows the right time twice a day. This whole "alpha male" nonsense AFO (and, to be fair, lots of people) project onto wolves is nothing short of hilarious. EDIT: I'm aware that the myth of the alpha wolf has its origins in faulty research. I was just speculating that people liking to make nature as brutal and exciting as possible might be part of what contributes to the myth's popularity, though I naturally can't prove this. - A hit rate of 85%. But for what prey? All prey in general or just a specific species? According to my course on evolution of mammals, African wild dogs have a general success rate of 80%. AWDs are seen as exceptionally successful hunters by African standards and probably among carnivorans in general. Now, wolves are close relatives and use similar hunting strategies, so, I'm sure wolves have a greater success rate than the 14% I find on random websites via google. But 85% is a stretch. Of course, given AFO's general reliability when it comes to numbers (read: none), we can safely assume they conjured this one up out of thin air. - Hit rate of 8%. Again, for specific prey or prey in general? I presume its general prey (as nothing else would make sense). It's strikes me as somewhat weird that the discrepance is that high, but then again, a) according to my aforementioned course, lions also "only" have a success rate of about 20%, b) AFO probably made that up anyway. - They go somewhat into the momentum of their charges, and later a bit into the additional weapons of both animals. For the cougar, the additional weapons are obviously its claws (perhaps the biggest thing separating it from the wolf). The wolf’s additional weapon is the wolf pack…which is outright stated will not be factored into this fight, since it’s a 1v1. So for the wolf, they might as well have just listed “none” under additional weapons. The alpha male wolf is such a chad that his pack of beta virgin wolves is willing to break the most basic AVA rules for him, resulting in the ambiguous death of a loser in AFO history. That's not an additional weapon, that's an outright superpower. - Okay, now on to the fight! The cougar finds the wolf eating a carcass…and actually walks away. This fight could have easily been avoided had the wolf not attacked. The wolf lands the first attack by biting on the cougar’s ankle. In real life, that could have done some serious damage that could end up biting the cougar in the ass later in the fight. Yes, the cougar turns around to try to attack the wolf, but imagine the wolf violently pulling back with its hooked, laterally compressed canine teeth, and shaking side to side. The cougar got off lightly here. It's a recurring theme in these fights that the animals are basically made of rubber and shrugg of any non-lethal injury like some Hollywood action hero. I mean, the great white shark lost a fin and basically kept swimming like nothing happened (and that's just the one example I can think off the top of my head). Even as a kid, I found most of that weird. - The cougar is then seen on its back. But it grabs the wolf with its paws and rakes its body with the claws on its hind feet. I feel like animal media tends to forget that cats can use their hind foot claws as weapons. Granted, the rear claws of cats are certainly not specialized killing weapons (they’re actually blunter and less recurved than the claws on the front paws, which in a way makes them more like the claws of dogs), and definitely wouldn’t be the most important weapons against another carnivoran. The cougar throws the wolf up into the air and some feet back (wut). It then lands a fatal neck bite, although by that point the wolf is motionless and already looks like it’s dead. That, on the other hand, I found a little weird as a kid, as it seemed to me like the wolf died from just a minor scratch. Maybe it just seemed ridiculous because AFO randomly decided its CGI combatants aren't invulnerable anymore Not too bad of a fight. Cougar vs wolf might well be interesting to discuss to those who aren’t too familiar with either animal. Personally, I think the fight has a clear winner (cougar), but at least it’s not the mismatch that some of these other fights are. The way the cougar ended up beating the wolf, though, was a bit weird. Yet the claws of the cougar are given relatively little screen time when they show all the testing. And when it is shown, it’s shown in the context of what kind of damage they can do instead of how well they can keep a hold on another animal (the latter is the primary purpose of cat claws). In all fairness, that might require more complicated movements than their animatronics are capable of. Damage tests just need very simple up-and-down movements. Then again, these tests exists solely for the coolness factor anyway. |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 7, 2021 1:49:00 GMT 5
But this is a wildlife documentary aimed at little boys who just want to see violence? How are we supposed to sell it if not every species we show is equally hyperbolic. Yeah, I get the need to use hyperbole. Could saying "mini-lion" have worked? You know, one of the more hilarious complains I see in the SJW Twitter/Tumblr bubble is the notion that wildlife documentaries project toxic masculinity onto predatory animals by always making them look fierce and angry. This is obviously nonsense, but even a stopped clock shows the right time twice a day. This whole "alpha male" nonsense AFO (and, to be fair, lots of people) project onto wolves is nothing short of hilarious. According to what I found, the "alpha wolf" concept can be traced back to a biologist named Rudolph Shenkel, who based his observations on captive wolves in 1944. L. David Mech, a renowned wolf biologist, repeated this concept in his bestselling book on wolves. But it was only afterwards, when he studied wild wolves, that he realized the concept was wrong, and he put in some serious effort to correct the misinformation he helped spread. It worked in the scientific community, but not in the general public (Mech tried, but couldn't get his own book off the shelves), where the concept remains deeply entrenched. www.mawer.com/the-art-of-boring/blog/the-myth-of-the-alpha-wolfThis, especially the last part, reminds me of the whole " T. rex the scavenger" debacle more than anything else to be honest (albeit with some differences). Actual scientific authorities say things that spread an incorrect perception of an animal-->scientists then dispel the myth-->the correct view becomes established/solidified within the scientific community, but remains popular in the general public. So yeah, less "tOxIc MaScUliNiTy REEEEEEEEE!!!!!" and more highly-influential piece of work by a scientist. (For the record, I'm not denying that toxic masculinity exists. I just think that in this case, citing it as a reason for the perpetuation of the "alpha wolf" myth is difficult to prove.) According to my course on evolution of mammals, African wild dogs have a general success rate of 80%. AWDs are seen as exceptionally successful hunters by African standards and probably among carnivorans in general. Now, wolves are close relatives and use similar hunting strategies, so, I'm sure wolves have a greater success rate than the 14% I find on random websites via google. But 85% is a stretch. Of course, given AFO's general reliability when it comes to numbers (read: none), we can safely assume they conjured this one up out of thin air. I just did some cursory research, and it looks like one researcher reported a hunting success rate of 82% for cougars hunting deer and elk, which isn't far off for what AFO claimed about them. A lot of what goes into this is that cougars are selective about how and where they hunt (choosing areas with heavier cover) ( link). However, one book I read on tigers also gives figures for them, but also admits that many of their estimates on hunting success rate are just plain guesses ( link), which makes me wonder if the same might also apply to the cougar and wolf figures. This book then says that success rates likely vary as a function of several different factors (including prey densities, grouping patterns of prey species, changes in prey vulnerability, and experience discrepancies in individual predators). I think all this is giving us a sign: hunting success rate is irrelevant in a fight (though, I assume we all kind of knew that, considering there are formidable herbivores that fight just fine without hunting anything at all). The alpha male wolf is such a chad that his pack of beta virgin wolves is willing to break the most basic AVA rules for him, resulting in the ambiguous death of a loser in AFO history. That's not an additional weapon, that's an outright superpower. In an alternate universe, AFO gave the wolf his pack, and I'm rating this episode as a mismatch on par with elephant vs rhino or bull shark vs hippo. It's a recurring theme in these fights that the animals are basically made of rubber and shrugg of any non-lethal injury like some Hollywood action hero. I mean, the great white shark lost a fin and basically kept swimming like nothing happened (and that's just the one example I can think off the top of my head). Even as a kid, I found most of that weird. Not to mention how quickly and easily it regains consciousness from being flipped upside down from the crocodile's death roll. In all fairness, that might require more complicated movements than their animatronics are capable of. Damage tests just need very simple up-and-down movements. Then again, these tests exists solely for the coolness factor anyway. True. One relatively simple test I had in mind might have been to just test the gripping ability of the claws on flesh or a surrogate thereof. Perhaps they could test how much force is needed to dislodge the claws, and therefore give us an idea of how hard it may be to escape a cat's grasp. Of course, real life is a lot more nuanced than just one such test, but that could be said of all their tests. |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 13, 2021 5:54:27 GMT 5
Lion vs TigerFull episode on Internet Archive here->- Ah yes, lion vs tiger. The one episode that probably triggered the most amount of viewers. And the most boring famous animal matchup ever.
I want you to think of all the famous animal matchups: tiger vs bear, Tyrannosaurus vs Spinosaurus, Livyatan vs megalodon. In these fights, there are at least substantial anatomical differences between the two combatants that might affect how the battle goes. Sure, a tiger and a bear use teeth and claws to fight, but bite force, canine length, body build, claw sharpness, etc. all differ. Livyatan and megalodon might both be tail-propelled biting/ramming thingies, but tooth shape, jaw shape, and head anatomy all differ (and that’s to say nothing about all the obvious anatomical differences between a whale and a shark). T. rex and Spinosaurus represent two extremely different deviations of the general theropod body plan.
So what about lion vs tiger? Here are two muscle reconstructions: one lion, one tiger, both by the same artist (Jun’s anatomy).
Without being a smartass and looking at the image URLs or reverse-image searching, try to tell the two apart…
…Can’t do it, huh? That’s exactly the problem: they’re virtually the same animal. And yet god knows how many hours have been spent furiously typing away at the keyboard about how one totally kicks the ass of the other. Sure, you could argue for some subtle anatomical differences between the two that might give one a bit of an edge (apart from size, I could perhaps think of one for the tiger). But at the end of the day, they’re both just Panthera. Chill the f*ck out. - Gabe Doran says that lions and tigers rarely meet in India. Thing is, they don’t really meet at all these days. To be fair though, they used to before they were ****ed over by humanity. I like to imagine this fight happening during a time when both Asiatic lions and Bengal tigers were more widespread and overlapped.
I do have a somewhat related, but interesting story to tell. Recently, there was a tiger that traveled all the way to the Indian state of Gujarat (the first time a tiger was ever spotted there since 1992), where Gir National Park is. This national park is the only place in India where lions still exist. It caused some excitement that Gujarat was the only state in India with “the lion, tiger, and leopard”, and some were crossing their fingers that the tiger might continue onwards to Gir. Sadly, he didn’t, and the tiger’s carcass was found two weeks later in a forest in Mahisagar, about six miles from where he was photographed. He never reached Gir, and never met its lions and leopards. A necropsy later revealed he died of starvation, and then the carcass was burned to ensure the body parts would never be sold (link). So my point here is, we recently had a chance for a tiger to finally coexist with lions like in the olden days, although it didn’t pan out. Could be that in the future other tigers might disperse and successfully make it to Gir. - I know the “experts” going back and forth here is just scripted banter, but it’s particularly painful to listen to here since they’re literally just talking about two Panthera.
- The tiger’s stats list it as 570 lbs, which is equal to ~259 kg. I don’t think Bengal tigers are this big on average, but as we’ve seen, AFO likes to use figures for particularly large animals. They also claim that the tiger’s canines are 4 inches long, but this is misleading. There are tigers with canine crowns up to 9 cm long, but this is an extreme. Many male lions and tigers have canine crowns that are 5.5-6 cm long, with some exceeding 7 cm (Christiansen, 2008). So the norm is more like >2 inches. I think AFO got data that was looking at the length of the entire tooth (i.e. canine+root), as opposed to the amount of tooth that actually penetrates prey.
Even if we assumed the tiger individual had record-sized canine crowns, I don’t think this is necessarily an advantage. If anything, I think it would actually be a disadvantage, since canines that are too long would be more fragile (Freeman & Lemen, 2006). Interestingly, one study found that tigers with broken canines were not forced to hunt smaller prey than tigers with intact canines, even when looking at the prey preferences of only adult tigers (Goodrich et al., 2012). Although broken canines aren’t as sharp, they are less liable to snap. - The CGI tiger (or lion) skeleton has a horrendous looking skull.
- Okay but seriously, is aluminum really a good stand-in for bone? I know it’s relatively lightweight, but it’s still a metal.
- Bite force for both cats is stated to be 1,000 lbf. This might not be far off, depending on the position of the jaw you’re talking about. The bite force paper I cited in my wolf vs cougar review gives a maximum bilateral bite force of 4,167.6 N for the lion, particularly at the interdental gap in front of the carnassial teeth (Therrien, 2005). A biomechanical model of a lion skull showed that a lot of the muscle force is actually lost in the bite. In a big cat like the lion, bite force at the carnassial is significantly higher than bite force at the canine (Wroe, 2007), despite the short, robust jaws.
I mention all of this because in carnivorans, and definitely cats, it’s really the front teeth (canines and incisors) that are used for fighting and killing. The only teeth relevant to either animal in this fight are its canines, where bite force would be at its weakest. - Literally right after I resume, Dave Salmoni asks if bite force would differ at different tooth positions.
- The lion’s mane is discussed. I do think it’s possible it might offer very minor protection (even if this isn’t its primary function), but it is definitely not stopping a full-on bite (see Schaller (1972) for an account of a nomadic male lion being killed by a bite to the nape from another male lion). Nevertheless, the lion’s mane is listed as an advantage along with the tiger’s size.
- You want to know what I think may be an advantage for the tiger? A study from earlier this year found variation in the size of the inter-iliac angle in a number of different cat species. There were a few reasons for this variation, with one of them being prey size. Felids that hunt larger prey have smaller inter-iliac angles than felids that hunt small and mixed prey. Although the lion hunts large prey, pack-hunting lions actually have wider inter-iliac angles than other Panthera species that are solitary hunters (which would inevitably include the tiger). Tightening the iliac wings around the sacrum likely enhances large prey control; those of lions tend to be less so due to the fact that pack-hunting reduces the pressure for narrower inter-iliac angles (Pallandre et al., 2021). In a one-on-one fight, where the lion doesn’t have the luxury of a pack helping him subdue the tiger, the tiger’s tighter iliac wings might make him a bit more stable when trading blows with and wrestling with the lion with its forelimbs.
Even this, however, isn’t necessarily an absolute. One of the figures in that paper has box and whisker plots showing how much the different cat species overlap in inter-iliac angle. Although the median value for the lion is indeed greater than that for the tiger (demonstrating the point above), there is still considerable overlap between the two. Like I said, they’re both just Panthera. - ”The lion is taller and longer”, he says as if being longer really mattered.
- The habitat differences between the two are discussed: here I get a bit nitpicky. African lions certainly live on grasslands like they say, but the few lions still living in India inhabit a small patch of forest. So are we using an Asiatic lion that lives in a forest (since it was pointed out earlier that lions and tigers both live in India) or an African lion that lives in the savanna?
- The fact that the lion and tiger skulls are virtually identical makes creating the aluminum copies easier, but honestly, I think it’s pain. The only reason they’re spending even more time, money, and resources to create the lion’s skull separately is to ensure precision and greater accuracy for their tests (as meaningful as they can get, anyway). You could pretty much get away with casting just one of their skulls in aluminum and use the results from that as reflective of what both could do, but you don’t just to be on the safe side.
I’m sure when they create all their animatronic animal body parts, they create the aluminum skulls for both animals at the same time, since they sometimes give the design team up to a week to create this shit. If not, that would be even more pain. - Next they recreate a biomechanical big cat arm with claws. Gabe Doran tells us that aluminum is too soft for this test, and now they’re using stainless steel.
Wait, what? They literally said earlier that aluminum is a good stand-in for bone. Now, I doubt that’s even true, but that’s even less true for steel. - Shut up and press the damn button already!
(I know it doesn’t really do anything, but just get the fight over with) - If nothing else I like the setting for this fight. Unlike all the other matches, it’s in an abandoned man-made structure (a temple) that has been reclaimed by wildlife.
- The tiger’s bite is deflected by the lion’s mane. Again, I don’t think the mane would help that much.
- So, the lion walks explores this temple, sees the tiger, fights and kills the tiger, and then walks away from it? Did it not have a reason to be there? Like maybe take the carcass the tiger was eating, which it may have caught the scent of?
- In the action replay, the paw swipes the lion and tiger deliver to each other are synced with ridiculous slap sound effects.
- Also, the tiger is completely still on the ground as the lion bites its throat. Surely the tiger wouldn’t be dead or incapacitated by that point, so realistically the tiger would still be violently flailing once it was on the ground.
- In the action replay, the lion’s skeleton briefly flashes a couple times as it roars at the camera. Okay, that’s kind of neat. If only it were in higher definition.
- So, all things considered, what do I think of lion vs tiger, if I had to choose?
According to people I asked on Discord (who know much more about lion and tiger average sizes than I do), the Bengal tiger’s size advantage depends on population. One person told me “Depending on the Bengal tiger population, size advantage can range from -70 kg to +30 kg” “Generally, it is 20 - 25 kg over South African lions”. Another told me “Bengal tigers have a size advantage of around ~50kg over Asiatic lions and ~15kg over South African lions”, with Asiatic lions weighing 150-160 kg.
15 kg isn’t too much of a size advantage; if this were a 200 kg Bengal tiger against a 185 kg South African lion, it’s only a size advantage of ~8%. A size advantage of 20-25 kg might be more considerable, especially since we’re talking about very similar animals here. A 50 kg size advantage would definitely be enough to warrant victory by itself.
So if this were an African lion, then maybe a slight advantage to the tiger for its slight size advantage and the advantage I mentioned above. If this were an Asiatic lion, the tiger would certainly win. At parity, it’s really just 50/50.
[/u][/b]  1809 painting by Johann Wenzel Peter aptly entitled A Tiger and a Lion fight over a Fawn. Honestly, there’s not much for me to say about this one. It’s just two big cats ( Panthera) fighting each other. One is either slightly or significantly bigger than the other, depending on whether this fight assumes an African lion or formerly sympatric Asiatic lion. I’m going to lean towards the latter, in which case I see no reason for the lion to win against what is essentially itself, but 50 kg heavier. Did I mention that this whole matchup is stupid?  Concept: 4/10 Fairness: 6/10? (assumes Asiatic lion) Factuality: 6/10? Reasonable outcome: 4/10 (assumes Asiatic lion) Overall score: 5/10[/ul]
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Post by Supercommunist on Oct 13, 2021 6:36:32 GMT 5
^When it comes to similarities inside nature's giants had an episode where they dissected a lion and tiger side by side and the people doing the dissection remarked that they looked identical without the skin.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 13, 2021 9:15:35 GMT 5
Yep, I remember that. And it makes complete sense.
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Post by creature386 on Oct 19, 2021 12:00:28 GMT 5
Can't believe I forgot to comment on this one. Due to my poor Internet connection, I'll unfortunately have to hurry up. - Ah yes, lion vs tiger. The one episode that probably triggered the most amount of viewers. And the most boring famous animal matchup ever.
…Can’t do it, huh? That’s exactly the problem: they’re virtually the same animal. And yet god knows how many hours have been spent furiously typing away at the keyboard about how one totally kicks the ass of the other. Sure, you could argue for some subtle anatomical differences between the two that might give one a bit of an edge (apart from size, I could perhaps think of one for the tiger). But at the end of the day, they’re both just Panthera. Chill the f*ck out.
Lol. I remember how, back in the day, I actually participated in some of those keyboard wars. I think I even backed the lion back then, maybe because AFO actually influenced me, maybe because I was subconsciously rooting for the "underdog" (due to the lion being smaller), I don't know. These days, I agree that the tiger's size is the only relevant difference. Gabe Doran says that lions and tigers rarely meet in India. Thing is, they don’t really meet at all these days. To be fair though, they used to before they were ****ed over by humanity. I like to imagine this fight happening during a time when both Asiatic lions and Bengal tigers were more widespread and overlapped. When I was small, I missed that part and just assumed they broke their sympatry rule and made an African lion fight a Bengal tiger. Considering the size difference between African and Asiatic lions, that's honestly the only way that matchup would even make sense. Literally right after I resume, Dave Salmoni asks if bite force would differ at different tooth positions. To be fair, these "experts" probably just ask questions the audience is likely asking. The lion’s mane is discussed. I do think it’s possible it might offer very minor protection (even if this isn’t its primary function), but it is definitely not stopping a full-on bite (see Schaller (1972) for an account of a nomadic male lion being killed by a bite to the nape from another male lion). Nevertheless, the lion’s mane is listed as an advantage along with the tiger’s size. And, another myth I believed back then got busted. People spent pages arguing over the protective function of the mane back then on Carnivora. I think I at some point even believed the mane would be the lion's decisive advantage, somehow. That's at least how this episode presented it during the fight where they had the tiger try to bite the lion's neck and fail only to make that point. I can't go over the rest, really, (bad Internet, again). This was the episode that introduced me to AFO back then. I was a bit surprised that the lion won back then (though I was rooting for it, see above). But even as a kid, I found the tiger's death somewhat ridiculous. Like, the lion just had to make a brief bite while the tiger didn't fight back. Did they really have to drive home how screwed the tiger was without a mane? The CGI was awful as well, even by the standards of the show. But while the fight is stupid on a conceptual, factual, and probably also on the entertainment level, the episode probably has the greatest "hype factor" overall, so, we've gotta give it that. |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 27, 2021 6:36:04 GMT 5
Saltwater Crocodile vs Great White Sharkwww.youtube.com/watch?v=-o7nLZWyinI(I don't have the full episode, so screw it, I'm just gonna review this video) - It requires some reaching, but depending on how large the two here are, this COULD be a good match. Very large saltwater crocodiles can weigh ~1,000 kg, which is roughly the weight of an average adult female great white shark. Of course, the average saltie is smaller than this, and so on average and at max the fight is clearly in favor of the shark.
- One of the first things Gabe Doran says here is that salties have been found with shark remains in their stomachs, perhaps those of great whites. While crocodiles can certainly prey on sharks, I’ve seen no evidence of consumption of great whites by crocodiles.
- The size figures for the saltie (23 feet long and 3,000 lbs) are obviously closer to max-sized individuals. The same can be said for the great white (23 feet long and 7,500 lbs).
- Since I can’t watch the full episode, I wonder if AFO ever goes into how their teeth function. It’s an important consideration, much more important than how many teeth they have in my opinion (IMO, when comparing the bites of two predators, tooth count would only really matter if the discrepancy is vast; e.g. the four canines of a big cat vs the entire tooth row of a crocodile).
- ”The croc can’t get a good grip.” What do you mean? Seemed like he landed a pretty solid bite at the end of the great white’s tail. With all that jaw power and teeth designed for gripping, I doubt the crocodile would have lost his grip that easily irl.
- *siiiiigggghhhh…
The crocodile ends up ripping off one of the shark’s pectoral fins, but the shark shrugs it off like it’s nothing. At this point, she should not be able to swim properly (I say “she” assuming that we’re using the larger, more powerful sex in both animals, which in the case of great white sharks are the females). I wholeheartedly back the shark at average weights, but if this ever happened, the shark would be in serious trouble. - Even worse, the crocodile flips itself and the shark upside down. At this point, the shark should be in a state of tonic immobility, and it would be a sitting duck to the crocodile.
- Although, one thing I never considered before is whether or not the crocodile could feasibly flip over the larger shark like this with a death roll.
- Right after sinking for a bit, the crocodile needs to swim back up to the surface for air.
Uhh, how long was this fight? It’s been about a minute, and the crocodile already needs to go up for air? A quick search tells me that a voluntary dive usually lasts no longer than 15 minutes, and usual dive times are around 4 to 6 minutes (link). Depending on how long the croc’s been underwater without resurfacing, he could still be able to finish off the shark here before going up for oxygen. - If you listen closely, I think you can hear a stock monster roar as the crocodile is swimming back up to the surface (3:43). Wtf…?
- And then the shark just recovers quickly, swims up, and bites the shark’s stomach…oi…
Final verdict: This is another one of those episodes where an animal’s size alone makes it the clear winner. Even though I think this would be a close match if both weighed the same, that is not the norm, and even this episode acknowledges the usual size advantage the great white shark would have (even if they presented both at unusually high weights). That said, crocodile vs shark is a pretty cool concept, and the fact that you could theoretically debate a parity matchup makes it a little better than the likes of say, elephant vs rhino. Concept: 7/10 Fairness: 5/10 Factuality: 3/10 Reasonable outcome: 9/10 (how the battle went was stupid, though) Overall score: 6/10 Don't know if it deserves an award.
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Post by creature386 on Oct 30, 2021 15:27:38 GMT 5
Sooo, after having survived a programming exam, I can finally comment on this: - ”The croc can’t get a good grip.” What do you mean? Seemed like he landed a pretty solid bite at the end of the great white’s tail. With all that jaw power and teeth designed for gripping, I doubt the crocodile would have lost his grip that easily irl.
- *siiiiigggghhhh…
The crocodile ends up ripping off one of the shark’s pectoral fins, but the shark shrugs it off like it’s nothing. At this point, she should not be able to swim properly (I say “she” assuming that we’re using the larger, more powerful sex in both animals, which in the case of great white sharks are the females). I wholeheartedly back the shark at average weights, but if this ever happened, the shark would be in serious trouble. - Even worse, the crocodile flips itself and the shark upside down. At this point, the shark should be in a state of tonic immobility, and it would be a sitting duck to the crocodile.
Back in the day, I didn't know so much about sharks and didn't realize how much of a disadvantage a lost fin would be to a shark. But even then, I knew that sharks lose consciousness when they're flipped upside down. I was also a bit surprised by how the sharks attacked. It was clearly trying to bite the crocodile, yet it was swimming snout-first into the crocodile's mouth instead of, say, tilting its head a little so that the snout would point up and its teeth would face the crocodile. - Right after sinking for a bit, the crocodile needs to swim back up to the surface for air.
Uhh, how long was this fight? It’s been about a minute, and the crocodile already needs to go up for air? A quick search tells me that a voluntary dive usually lasts no longer than 15 minutes, and usual dive times are around 4 to 6 minutes (link). Depending on how long the croc’s been underwater without resurfacing, he could still be able to finish off the shark here before going up for oxygen.
That was a thing, too. Back as a kid, I liked the shark much more and I wanted to rationalize its victory so that it would feel more earned. So, I tried to make up dump hypotheses, such as that the crocodile was exhausted or something, but they didn't feel believable. Even now, I think they picked the right winner, but in the scenario itself, the shark's victory is plain unearned. Final verdict:This is another one of those episodes where an animal’s size alone makes it the clear winner. Even though I think this would be a close match if both weighed the same, that is not the norm, and even this episode acknowledges the usual size advantage the great white shark would have (even if they presented both at unusually high weights). That said, crocodile vs shark is a pretty cool concept, and the fact that you could theoretically debate a parity matchup makes it a little better than the likes of say, elephant vs rhino. Concept: 7/10 Fairness: 5/10 Factuality: 3/10 Reasonable outcome: 9/10 (how the battle went was stupid, though) Overall score: 6/10 Don't know if it deserves an award. I think it doesn't. The fight was a little one-sided, but at least you an make a case for the crocodile. Funnily enough, despite being a worse show overall, AFO has way less mismatches than, say, DeathBattle. Granted, it's maybe because the subject matter AFO deals with leaves less wiggle-room for the type of nonsensical calculations that keep ruining DB for me (their recent episode shows that quite well, more on that on Discord). If I had to compare this AFO episode with one of DB, it'd probably be the Nathan Drake vs Lara Croft episode. The matchup is not a bad one and winner theoretically deserved the victory, but the way it went down in the animation was anything but deserved. It's kinda the same with the shark and the crocodile here. It's not a terrible match on paper and the outcome makes sense, but the animation was one of the worst in the whole series, if you ask me (although the alligator vs bear fight is arguably a close contender; I'll let you have the final say on that). |
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