Re:How big cats hunt zebras and impalas, and how these prey ...
by DougBTX on Thursday January 25, 2018 @06:34AM
(#16230200)
And how it relates to programming:
> Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?
- Brian Kernighan
Re:How big cats hunt zebras and impalas, and how these prey ...
by jwilk on Thursday January 25, 2018 @07:19AM
(#16230336)
> Though cheetahs and impalas were universally more athletic than lions and zebras
Wait, what? Did they mean that cheetahs and lions were more athletic than implalas and zebras?
Re:How big cats hunt zebras and impalas, and how these prey ...
by icegreentea2 on Thursday January 25, 2018 @07:33AM
(#16230387)
No, I think they mean they meant exactly what they wrote. Impalas are too fast for lions to hunt (normally). Single cheetahs are too small to take down a zebra (normally).
Re:How big cats hunt zebras and impalas, and how these prey ...
by gus_massa on Thursday January 25, 2018 @08:42AM
(#16230669)
Impalas and zebras must be more athletic because they have to scape the cheetahs and lions 100% of the time. If you scape only 99% of the time you are dead.
Also, the predator is happy to catch any of the preys, they can pick a tired/old/sick/unlucky one. So if 99% of the prey scape, they are probably happy.
Re:How big cats hunt zebras and impalas, and how these prey ...
by icegreentea2 on Thursday January 25, 2018 @09:45AM
(#16231025)
The articles says right there that the hunters are better at acceleration, deacceleration, top speed, and muscle density than their prey. The conclusion of the paper (at least as shared in its abstract) is exactly "the predator needs to be more athletic than its prey to sustain a viable success rate".
Re:How big cats hunt zebras and impalas, and how these prey ...
by Retric on Thursday January 25, 2018 @09:59AM
(#16231144)
You don't need to be faster than the predator, you need to be faster than other members of the herd.
Re:How big cats hunt zebras and impalas, and how these prey ...
by mywacaday on Thursday January 25, 2018 @11:37AM
(#16232101)
Reminds me of the Billy Connolly joke about the two camera men filming a lion. The lion sees the two camera men and proceeds to chase after them. One camera man stops and puts on a pair of running shoes. His colleague tells him “You will never outrun the lion in those”. He replied, “I don’t need to outrun the lion, I just need to outrun you!!”.
> Though cheetahs and impalas were universally more athletic than lions and zebras, both cheetahs and lions had a similar advantage over their prey — they were 38 percent faster, 37 percent better at accelerating, 72 percent better at decelerating and their muscles were 20 percent more powerful.
> [...] impalas and zebras were typically moving at only half their maximum speed. [...] The model showed that impalas and zebras have the best chance of making a getaway if they run at moderate speeds, because that leaves more options for maneuvering away at the last second