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Why are there big cats but no big dogs?

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zinfamous said:
no. not at all like dogs. They simply don't have the smarts.

Big cats stalk and depend on surprise. They have neither the stamina nor ability to strategize that dogs have. Even the Cheetah, which can go for a spell, will give up quickly if it loses the surprise advantage.

male lions are also lazy sonsabitches. they don't hunt for shit. they let the ladies do all the work.
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Dogs aren't smarter. They just have more endurance so they can follow their prey until it gets tired. Ambush requires the element of surprise and coordinating your attack. Also, when a male lion is involved, his only act is landing the final blow. Hence, whereas all the dogs chase a prey until it tires, each cat has a particular role in the hunt and they have to be in sync or else the prey gets away.
 
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Fritzo said:
That's not a Dire Wolf! This is:

classic_battletech_miniatures_IWM_20-607.jpg
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mechwarrior.jpg
 
Narmer said:
Dogs aren't smarter. They just have more endurance so they can follow their prey until it gets tired. Ambush requires the element of surprise and coordinating your attack. Also, when a male lion is involved, his only act is landing the final blow. Hence, whereas all the dogs chase a prey until it tires, each cat has a particular role in the hunt.
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Well, wolves aren't just chasing prey, they're usually herding them to separate the weak from the rest, and then run them down. There're dynamic roles happening there too.

Lions, lacking the stamina, often setup a trap where the male (or another member just as often) will spook the herd in to the direction of the rest, who make additional ambushes.
 
Narmer said:
Lions are very large and they hunt in packs.[/QUOTE
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But, we are comparing Africa that has the last large mammals on earth, v. the rest of the world where prey size tends to be much smaller.

And for that matter Africa has its various Hyenas to fill the canine biological niche, yet the rest of the world lacks the prey animal size to support lions. As about the only cat species that hunts socially.

Even 10-15 thousand years ago North America and other regions had large prey sized animal species, and animals like larger cats, cave bears, and dire wolves thrived then as top predictors.

But still Narmer and Linflas made good posts IMHO.
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Lemon law said:
Narmer said:
Lions are very large and they hunt in packs.[/QUOTE
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But, we are comparing Africa that has the last large mammals on earth, v. the rest of the world where prey size tends to be much smaller.

And for that matter Africa has its various Hyenas to fill the canine biological niche, yet the rest of the world lacks the prey animal size to support lions. As about the only cat species that hunts socially.

Even 10-15 thousand years ago North America and other regions had large prey sized animal species, and animals like larger cats, cave bears, and dire wolves thrived then as top predictors.

But still Narmer and Linflas made good posts IMHO.
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don't forget the Hell Pig:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entelodont
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Narmer said:
Dogs aren't smarter. They just have more endurance so they can follow their prey until it gets tired. Ambush requires the element of surprise and coordinating your attack. Also, when a male lion is involved, his only act is landing the final blow. Hence, whereas all the dogs chase a prey until it tires, each cat has a particular role in the hunt and they have to be in sync or else the prey gets away.
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think u got that backwards, social interaction and cooperative hunting requires more intelligence. lions somewhat do this, but it isn't on the same level since they generally kick out all the males early on in a pride, so it is just a harem with 1 or two males. much simpler structure.
 
zinfamous said:
no. not at all like dogs. They simply don't have the smarts.

Big cats stalk and depend on surprise. They have neither the stamina nor ability to strategize that dogs have. Even the Cheetah, which can go for a spell, will give up quickly if it loses the surprise advantage.

male lions are also lazy sonsabitches. they don't hunt for shit. they let the ladies do all the work.
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Sounds like the lions are smarter than the dogs...well the male ones at least.
 
Could also be because dogs are from the America's where they out hunted most of the big cats, while the big cats of Africa, Europe and Asia early on only had to compete with hyena's before dogs made it across the barring straight into Asia.


also, the largest dog by mass is the Neapolitan Mastiff.

neapolitan_mastiff.jpg
 
I enjoyed reading this thread. The content to nef ratio was quite excellent!

Also, I've always wondered why the bigger animals of N America are so small compared to some other places..
 
Juked07 said:
I enjoyed reading this thread. The content to nef ratio was quite excellent!

Also, I've always wondered why the bigger animals of N America are so small compared to some other places..
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Humans extinctified them all. We showed up here with the full range of modern weaponry and tactics and the big mammals had too little time to evolve effective countermeasures.

Every single one of Africa's remaining large mammals has at least one thing in common: when you threaten them, they charge you. The ones that ran away, well, they did not survive evolving human predators.
 
Juked07 said:
I enjoyed reading this thread. The content to nef ratio was quite excellent!

Also, I've always wondered why the bigger animals of N America are so small compared to some other places..
Click to expand...

Because they used to be bigger, but were out hunted by dogs. Look up the American Lion or the Giant Short Faced Bear.
 
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