A lion was preying on its prey, biting the poor little animal with its bloody mouth.
Lions are preying on giraffes
Such hunting is very common among animals, because they have almost evolved aggressive organs in their long history.
Why don't humans?
How did humans defeat animals to become the current masters of the planet?
The evolutionary history of mankind
Aggressive organs of animals
The most common are the teeth and claws of large beasts such as lions and tigers, which are already large enough to oppress most animals, and coupled with their aggressive teeth and claws, the prey they stare at dies very painfully.
From elk to bears, they are able to use these aggressive organs to level themselves.
Aggressive tigers and lions
Sharp teeth can pierce the throat of prey, causing it to die quickly, and even if the prey is relatively large, they will use their claws and teeth to divide the dead prey into small pieces to eat.
Most animals will run for the best when they encounter a strong tiger or lion.
There is also a way to resemble a chemical attack, which is to release venom.
Such animals can be seen on land and at sea, such as snakes and jellyfish.
Snakes use their bodies to entangle their prey
When preying on prey, snakes first use their physical superiority to entangle their prey and suffocate it to death.
In addition, due to the simple structure of the upper and lower jaws of snakes, the ligaments between them can make their mouths open and close at will, and the maximum can even be opened to about 130 degrees, which also allows them to swallow larger prey than themselves.
If these aggressive organs are not high enough, then their poisonous glands and fangs are enough to meet the criteria of death.
The structure of the snake's head
Snakes have more than one venom, and the degree of damage they can cause varies, some of which are neurotoxins, and prey injected with such toxins will produce temporary paralysis symptoms, but they will not have a chance to wake up again.
There are also some toxins, when injected into the body of prey, will destroy their blood cells and other functions, causing their blood to clott or bleed heavily and die.
Snake venom even has some enzymes that can directly break down animal tissue, which is also very aggressive to prey.
Jellyfish in the ocean have similar attack organs.
The stinging cells on jellyfish contain spiny sacs that store venom, and in addition to toxic proteinoid toxins, polypeptides, and enzymes, there are also tetraaminochromium, strong anesthetics, histamine, serotonin and other biologically active media.
Once these toxins enter the body of other organisms, they will easily cause symptoms such as hemolysis in the organism, and there is a considerable fatality rate.
Gorgeous jellyfish
Although bears are thick and cute, their attack power is not ambiguous, their huge molars can help them prey, and their well-developed limbs can easily overturn the walls of houses.
And although they are huge, they do not run slowly, and with their sharp five claws, they are basically stared at and killed.
Fortunately, many bears do not just eat meat, they also eat other plants, which are omnivorous.
brown bear
Herbivorous and carnivorous animals
Although almost all animals have aggressive organs, herbivores have fewer aggressive behaviors than carnivores in specific taxonomies.
In addition to larger herbivores such as elephants and hippos, which can better protect themselves from predators, small herbivores such as goats and elk often become the meals of carnivores.
The cause of the difference in aggressiveness between the two is related to the eating habits of herbivores.
Herbivores: elephants and hippos
Herbivores' body structures are designed to accommodate the presence of edible vegetation, such as the successful digestion of cellulose in vegetation, and their teeth are usually large and flat, not as prominent and sharp as those of carnivores.
Although there are also herbivores with fangs like elephants, their fangs are not effective, at best they are to scare the enemy.
Cute little hippopotamus
Aggressive organs of humans
Why does humanity, as the current overlord of the earth, look completely devoid of offensive organs similar to those of animals?
In fact, in the process of human development, in order to cope with the attack of the beast, some aggressive parts have also evolved, but they are not as exaggerated as the aggressive organs mentioned earlier.
Humans also fought with their bare hands against beasts before inventing tools, and although humans mostly ended their battles with defeat, they were not completely incapable of fighting them.
"Wusong Fighting Tiger"
For example, human elbows and heels, these two body parts are extremely hard, and almost no pain is felt, is an important weapon for people to launch attacks.
Many of today's self-defense teachings often use these two parts of the move.
Secondly, human upright walking ability can also help to deal with many small and medium-sized animals, although primitive humans are not as long as modern humans, but they are already taller than most animals and plants on the earth, with higher vision and faster attack speed than them.
Humans have learned to walk upright
But these attack organs of humans are indeed pediatric compared to the attack organs of beasts, so how did humans defeat them to become the current overlord of the earth?
Struggles with animals
This is due to the ability of humans to throw, just like people usually throw stones to scare dogs on the side of the road, primitive society, people also use throwing stones to drive away beasts.
You may think that how the beast is afraid of you a few small stones, it must be fake.
In fact, for animals such as lions, tigers, wolves and crocodiles, although they have a strong face-to-face attack strength, they are completely ignorant of air attacks, and human grasping and throwing are like encountering magic beyond their cognition, so of course they will be afraid.
Imagine a lion suddenly hit by a succession of stones, and it did not find any enemies around it, how big its inner shadow area should be at this moment.
"The Lion Opens Wide"
Although human relatives orangutans also have certain throwing abilities, they can only be regarded as a playful act and cannot be used for attack, because their throwing distance and flexibility are very poor.
The reason why humans have such excellent throwing ability is related to their elastic potential energy.
Humans have excellent throwing abilities
According to anthropological research:
Humans have a flexible waist to increase the torque, lower humerus to increase range of motion, and a flatter shoulder joint that helps align the direction of force of the pectoralis major muscles with the direction of rotation of the throw.
Human evolution
Although the ability to throw avoided many dangers for human beings in primitive societies, the use of this ability alone was far from enough to become the overlord of the earth, and human development has mainly relied on the help of intelligence.
Schematic diagram of the human brain
This should also explain why humans have never evolved aggressive organs that resemble sharp teeth.
In the process of evolution, the brain capacity of human beings gradually expanded, making it possible for humans to think more, so early humans began to invent tools for hunting, production and life.
With the help of tools, human beings began to gradually form a fixed mode of life, slowly moving from tribe to country.
Early humans began to use tools
Intelligence and labor have gradually separated human beings from the ranks of other mammals, opening up a separate path of intelligent upgrading, and people have used intelligence to create language and writing, which has greatly facilitated communication between human beings.
From eating habits to lifestyles, humans have formed a more suitable pattern of survival in their thinking.
But intellectual development may also have its costs, with the human brain finding that the human brain stopped evolving tens of thousands of years ago.
People have smart brains
The reason for the stop is likely to be related to the physical quality of human beings, although the human brain only accounts for 2% of the weight of the human body, but it consumes 20% of the energy of the entire body, and in the later evolution of human beings, the body has not changed much, so it is impossible to support the formation of more brain capacity.
Fortunately, human beings have now created many weapons that can be used for attack and defense, which are many times more powerful than the earlier swords, and the number of humans has continued to increase, and they have become the deserved overlords of the earth.
nuclear weapon
So, even without the aggressive organs like animals, human beings are still tenacious to the present and create a brilliant human civilization.
Every move of human beings may affect the ecological environment on the earth, and since it has become the master of the earth, it should also be responsible for protecting the earth.
Protect this beautiful home of the earth
After all, so far, the earth is the only home that human beings can survive, if human beings develop themselves while overusing and destroying the natural environment, the last to eat the bitter fruit can only be human beings themselves.