Grizzly Bear vs. Gorilla

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

Who wins?

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by saphojunkie

I think the only way this works is by the gorilla getting two hands on the grizzly bear's jaw and breaking it, which is a common primate tactic. Tear off the hands, tear off the jaw.

Hands aren't coming off, so if the gorilla goes for the jaw, it might have a chance. Claws are a big issue.

What primates do that? Sounds like a terrible idea to put your soft, relatively weak fingers in the mouth of a beast with razor sharp teeth and 1,000-pound bite force.

Originally Posted by Balto

BUT maybe protect it enough from the claws? Again, you could always declaw the bear and see what happens haha

Yeah, chain mail is super effective at stopping slashing type of damage. Slightly off topic but a samurai would have a really tough time with a medieval knight for that very reason.

IIRC, it does very little to stop stabbing or blunt force damage though.

Declawing the bear and giving the gorilla would be funny but it’s still kinda like a 5-year old in a suit of armor vs a grown man with a hammer lol

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by ChiefsFanatic

WTF? A Silverback Gorilla has the functional strength of 20 adult men.

Any Gorilla, especially a Silverback, would probably kill the bear, but sustain damage.

I don't think a bear, unless protecting cubs, would even think about attacking a Gorilla.

Are we under the impression that grizzlies aren't very strong? Because I assure you that they are freakishly strong. I've seen a 500-lb (ish) grizzly flip a garbage dumpster like you or I would flip a milk crate. As in with one paw. Anyone that's watched a Mutual of Omaha wildlife episode featuring grizzlies has seen grizzlies push over 15-inch diameter trees.

[ThaVirus]

I’ve learned a great deal in this debate. Lot of interesting info.

Apparently Grizzlies have 1,000 PSI bite force. Polar bears 1,200.

Interestingly, gorillas have 1,300 PSI bite force. To go along with like 3.5” canines. It’s actually weird that they don’t use their teeth more effectively in fights.

Also, before the latest Ice Age, Grizzly bears range covered basically the entire western portion of North America, all the way up from Alaska/Canada down to Mexico and going as far East as Missouri. According to Wikipedia their range stopped about halfway through Missouri so you boys in KC might have been Yogi poop 40,000 years ago.

[Why Not?]

Originally Posted by ChiefsFanatic

The Gorilla could crush the skull of the bear, or leopard.

There are individual people who survive bear attacks, so, again, a Gorilla with the functional strength of 20 adult men, they can run or move between 20 and 25 mph, and they are agile.

I am not sure what prowess you believe a bear has, but they are mostly stationary and vulnerable when attacking.

The Gorilla will attack the bear, and will not be at paw length for the bear to attack with its claws in an effecient manner. The bear will most likely go up on its back legs, and if rushed and hit or tackled by the Gorilla, the bear is really in trouble, as it is obviously not designed or used to fighting on the ground or from its back.

However, if there was an actual confrontation between a bear and a Gorilla, I doubt that the Gorilla would fight, and I think it would just avoid the bear, staying just far enough away to be safe. I think the bear would have to be attacking the young, or a breedable female, for the Gorilla to press an actual fight.

You think a gorilla could crush the skull of a grizzly bear? You'd have to drop a cement truck on the head of one of those things to crush it's skull. They can take bullets to the head and keep on coming. You are severely overrating the strenght of a monkey compared to a grizzly bear.

[lcarus]

Originally Posted by Dunerdr

The gorilla is moving that 500lbs in ways a grizzly doesn't. I think the Gorilla is stronger with more functional strength and I'll die on this hill.

Gorillas are strong. But those grizzly claws are gonna end shit real quick in how I picture it playing out

[ThaVirus]

So in addition to Grizzlies ranging all over the western side of the continent, there was a point in time in which they coexisted in America with short-faced bears, the American lion (larger than African lions), American cheetah, woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers.

Depending on when you believe humans first made their way to the Americas, prehistoric man could have seen all of these animals in the same environment.

**** all that lol

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

So in addition to Grizzlies ranging all over the western side of the continent, there was a point in time in which they coexisted in America with short-faced bears, the American lion (larger than African lions), American cheetah, woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers.

Depending on when you believe humans first made their way to the Americas, prehistoric man could have seen all of these animals in the same environment.

**** all that lol

I've never read anything about how common these creatures were and how common humans were. How often did humans encounter mega-carnivores? It would seem that a human with a spear, or even ten humans with ten spears wouldn't last long against a pride of American lions or a pack of dire wolves. I'm wondering if the humans had to take great pains to avoid areas where creatures like that roamed, or if it was a rare enough phenomenon that when it happened the humans simply joined the fossil record.

It seems that our ancestors did encounter bears based on our mutual love of cave dwellings. Somehow our people with pointy sticks seemed to give as good as they got, right? Or is that why teepees and mud huts and brick houses were invented?

There seems to be a lot of evidence that humans hunted mammoths, which is kind of astounding. It seems like a waste of risk and energy to hunt something so large that it'll putrefy before you can eat it, not to mention that the smell of a dead mammoth would likely draw every carrion eater within a day's walk. But they obviously knew more than I do about it, so it must've been a good idea.

Now I need to do some math. Weight estimates for mammoths are all over the board, but let's go with 13,000 pounds as an average. As a total guess, let's assume that 2/3 of that is edible bits, as opposed to bones and fur and tusks. So you've got roughly 9,000 pounds of meat.

How long will 9,000 pounds of meat last before it goes bad? We're talking ice age, so it's possible that all of nature was a refrigerator. But you've also got body heat and bacteria and stuff keeping it warm. Maybe you could still eat it after two weeks? I have no idea, so someone else can do better research.

So you have to eat 9,000 pounds of mammoth in two weeks to be fully efficient. That's 640 pounds per day.

What would a human eat? Maybe if you went with an all-mammoth paleo diet, you could eat 2.5 pounds? That's a 40-ounce steak.

So 640 pounds divided by 2.5 pounds per day means that a group of 256 people would enjoy mammoth steaks. There's no way that a hunting and gathering culture would have 256 people, right? So they would have killed this giant creature and then eaten maybe 1/4 of it? Why not kill something smaller that's less likely to pound you into neanderjelly?

Or were mammoths actually easy to kill compared to something like an oryx or a buffalo that might be more agile? And in that environment where there was a mammoth behind every tree, it's not like they were stressing the environment or competing for food. Food was everywhere compared to the number of people who needed it. So I guess wastage probably didn't matter at all. Maybe they killed mammoths just because they liked to eat the spleen or something.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I've never read anything about how common these creatures were and how common humans were. How often did humans encounter mega-carnivores? It would seem that a human with a spear, or even ten humans with ten spears wouldn't last long against a pride of American lions or a pack of dire wolves. I'm wondering if the humans had to take great pains to avoid areas where creatures like that roamed, or if it was a rare enough phenomenon that when it happened the humans simply joined the fossil record.

It seems that our ancestors did encounter bears based on our mutual love of cave dwellings. Somehow our people with pointy sticks seemed to give as good as they got, right? Or is that why teepees and mud huts and brick houses were invented?

I’ve wondered this myself. How much danger did a saber-toothed tiger or short-faced bear pose to an adult male? I’d love to be a fly on a tree in ancient times.

I’m sure you’ve seen the images of Buffalo skulls stacked probably 30-feet high? We know the French were big on trading animal furs in America as well. Obviously this is a bit later time period than fresh out of the last Ice Age but still. I’d bet it was pretty common for humans to encounter massive predators with prey so numerous, if only for the fact that they’d be drawn to the smell of food we were processing.

But yeah, it definitely seems we gave it as good as we got it. For one thing, most of these large predators have a healthy fear of humans. That leads me to believe we probably killed off the more bold members of the species, only leaving the ones who feared us to procreate.

It’s funny to talk about this animal vs that animal in a fight. Humans with no weapons are so far down the totem pole, it’s hilarious. But you get 10-15 of us together, all pissed off because our neighbor’s baby got snatched by a wolf, and we become really ****ing terrifying. We can run for longer distances than basically anything in the animal kingdom and we can throw stuff with surprising accuracy. Imagine getting stalked by a small army of strange, hairless Terminators wearing your cousin’s skin who can kill you before you even see them lol

There seems to be a lot of evidence that humans hunted mammoths, which is kind of astounding. It seems like a waste of risk and energy to hunt something so large that it'll putrefy before you can eat it, not to mention that the smell of a dead mammoth would likely draw every carrion eater within a day's walk. But they obviously knew more than I do about it, so it must've been a good idea.

Now I need to do some math. Weight estimates for mammoths are all over the board, but let's go with 13,000 pounds as an average. As a total guess, let's assume that 2/3 of that is edible bits, as opposed to bones and fur and tusks. So you've got roughly 9,000 pounds of meat.

How long will 9,000 pounds of meat last before it goes bad? We're talking ice age, so it's possible that all of nature was a refrigerator. But you've also got body heat and bacteria and stuff keeping it warm. Maybe you could still eat it after two weeks? I have no idea, so someone else can do better research.

So you have to eat 9,000 pounds of mammoth in two weeks to be fully efficient. That's 640 pounds per day.

What would a human eat? Maybe if you went with an all-mammoth paleo diet, you could eat 2.5 pounds? That's a 40-ounce steak.

So 640 pounds divided by 2.5 pounds per day means that a group of 256 people would enjoy mammoth steaks. There's no way that a hunting and gathering culture would have 256 people, right? So they would have killed this giant creature and then eaten maybe 1/4 of it? Why not kill something smaller that's less likely to pound you into neanderjelly?

Or were mammoths actually easy to kill compared to something like an oryx or a buffalo that might be more agile? And in that environment where there was a mammoth behind every tree, it's not like they were stressing the environment or competing for food. Food was everywhere compared to the number of people who needed it. So I guess wastage probably didn't matter at all. Maybe they killed mammoths just because they liked to eat the spleen or something.

I’ve always wondered the same. Cultures that hunted whales too. What tf are they doing with all of that meat?

I figure that’s probably wear jerky first came from.

https://frontierbushcraft.com/2020/0...-in-the-woods/

Looks like there are primitive ways to make it. That would probably add another couple weeks to the shelf life of the meat..? Not too sure.