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Are apes considered predators? I kind of thought they were just neither.
Gorilla are pure herbivores, chimpanzees are predators which mostly eat plants, I don’t know about Bonobos, all that’s talked about them is their seed life, and homo varies from pure carnivore (in cold places, those with few edible plants) to scavenger to omnivore (especially in the tropics and places with fruit) depending on environment
Homo, of course, has been lying to itself about what food best sustains it, we can’t live happily on the excess grain we’ve been producing for the last 10k years
By far the most dangerous predator on Earth is humans, we eat each other, anything that moves, kill for fun, build machines to do it for us, design what we eat to be easier to kill, and have you dealt with women? We’re a scary bunch.
Right, because we had better stamina than predators, and then developed intelligent brains. But are apes?
Met any chimps? And about that stamina thing…
https://afan.ottenheimer.com/articles/myth_of_persistent_hunting
yeah. We’re scum. We’re just violent++.
That’s if sight is your primary sense for hunting / evasion, right?
Is this the guy who got his bike stolen
I see what you did there… and also there.
hello, yes, this is shark!
Pls respond.
The same facial expression I make one week into the month when looking at my cheque account.
I think we can therefore safely conclude that the shark is also looking at your cheque account.
I think that’s specific to mammals. Just off the top of my head…
Invertebrates? No. All out
Fish? No. Also a Hammerhead would’ve really sold this comic lol.
Birds? No. Though, even on the side they do often have a tilt toward frontal in a lot of predatory birds. It could be argued…
Reptiles? No.
Amphibians? No. There’s no even trying to place rules on that optical chaos.
Mammals? Yeah, pretty much. Can’t think of an outlier but I’m sure there’s plenty of obvious ones.
Edit’ Ah, there we go. Of course marine mammals are an exception. But back in land, as too are llamas. Makes you wonder…what are the llamas plotting?
Birds? No. Though, even on the side they do often have a tilt toward frontal in a lot of predatory birds. It could be argued…
Birds of prey absolutely have their eyes positioned on the front of their heads. It’s most obvious in owls, since they have the largest eyes and wider faces, but all of them have front-facing eyes for binocular vision.
Convergent evolution has more to do with environment and trophic structure than it has to do with lineage. Any animal that can produce a complex eye can have similar evolutionary pressure given similar environments unless there’s some other stronger pressure.
Animals low to the ground or water often have slitted eyes (including goats who spend a of time with their heads down)
Most primates eat fruit or leaves, but have forward facing eyes because they need depth perception for climbing/jumping, not for hunting.
Squirrels have eyes on the sides of their heads and they’re pretty fucking good at climbing and jumping. Next theory …
If a squirrel falls they’re probably not going to squish as hard as a monkey. Lots of scavengers also have forward facing eyes (ex racoons) and pandas notably have forward facing eyes and are herbivorous.
I think the climbing and jumping theory is better than the predator theory on account that it explains why large aquatic animals aren’t selected for close frontal eyes.
Plus many predators (cats notably) do climb and jump. Humans and monkeys also have werd postures that might lead to them falling over easier.
In reality its probably never just one pressure that leads to these kind of evolutions.
Other theories are for depth perception for getting at fruit in trees, another is the first but they need depth perception because they’re bigger than a squirrel
Invertebrates? No. All out
I invite you to meet the awesome jumping spider, whose eyes are very especially needed set up to be forward-facing for depth perception for their jumps, and who hunt other spiders, as well as the wolf spider, who are also a hunting (as opposed to web) spider.
In fact, you can use the chart of spider eye layouts to pretty much identify whether you’re looking at a spider who builds webs and waits or a spider who hunts:
Anyone with two big forward-facing eyes is probably looking around for their next meal; the rest are building a web, trapdoor, or taking some other approach.
Huntsman is also a hunting spider
spider photo
Had a bunch of wolf spiders in the last shop i worked at as a welder. They have eye shine like cats and alligators. It was always easy to tell the wolf spiders from black widows even behind a dusty welding machine because you can see the little wolf spider eyes looking back at you.
Also crabs. I mean, their eyes are often on stalks and more mobile than mammalian eyes, and they’re compound, so they have a very wide field of view, but they’re still often basically in front, and they do apparently provide depth cues for hunting thanks to this.
https://www.jneurosci.org/content/38/31/6933
It also occurred to me to look up about dragonflies, and it seems they mostly hunt dorsally (which is a pretty viable option if you’re flying). BUT I found this article about Damselflies, which notes that they rely on binocular overlap and line up their prey in front of them. Which is pretty cool.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982219316641
Horseshoe crabs have nine different types of eyes. Even that tail is essentially a kind of eye, covered with photoreceptors. Not sure of the relevance of this horseshoe crab fact, it’s just fucking interesting.
They want your sweater back…
whales and dolphins are mammals, and they have eyes on the side. Don’t think anything preys on them (at least for the full-grown ones, pretty sure baby whales are preyed on)
Sperm whales are apex(orcas will target calves but they stay the hell away from bulls) but they don’t hunt their monstrous cephalopod prey with eyes.
I remember there used to be a goat on some island (now extinct) that didn’t have any predators so it evolved forward facing eyes
There’s also evidence that people tried to domesticate them, their hooves were trimmed.
A non-predator mammal with front facing eyes: llamas.
Panda
Are llamas’ eyes not side-facing? That’s what it looks like in photos to me
They need them for spitting.
Llamas are dangerous, so if you see one where people are swimming, you shout: Look out, there are llamas!
This joke only works in Spanish.
“Cuidado, hay llamas!” … I don’t get it.
Llamas also means flames.
pretty sure they face forwards. That’s what Minecraft ones look like, anyway, and a quick search of real ones look like they have forward-facing eyes
Source: Minecraft block model is a legendary reply
Only when its also correct. I will not abide by the color of minecraft spruce wood.
They’re sideways facing eyes, but a bit diagonal. Definitely not forward facing though. They’re just a bit bulgy.
So like halfway. I’m half right then. Half of a yes!
Pandas as well. Non-predator but clearly front facing eyes.
Yeah, but Pandas aren’t herbivores, they’re vegetarians. They’re too slow and clumsy to actually hunt prey, so the only thing they can catch is bamboo (which is the fastest growing plant, so I guess that’s something…sort of…). Anyway, the point is, Pandas as a species are from a family of predators, and they would absolutely eat meat if you gave it to them.
Pandas are descendants of omnivores with a predator streak, them rat fucking their diet to near koala levels of bad doesn’t really factor in yet.
Or they need it that way to learn kung-fu
…i am withholding all judgments on pandas until my full research has been completed…i heard something on the internet…
But Pandas are bears and haven’t changed much. They eat plants and their guts have not even evolved to do so yet. They are a wonder.
Is this because pandas used to be carnivorous? (they have sharp canine teeth despite pretty much only eating bamboo)
and humans.
Humans are predatory animals.
LOL no.
By far. We didn’t get to be #1 by fucking around, and we didn’t get to be #1 without all that dominating evolution lingering around. We’re so good at it, we’re predators to ourselves because there’s no prey left to dominate. Every other species dies farmed or as a hobby.
But I can say, that if I were die be prey to something, I’d rather it be to a human. Everything else starts eating you before you’re even dead lol.
Exception: Sloth
Sloths are weird all the extinct sloths had side eyes. The ones today dont. I’m guessing depth perception for climbing. Because the list goes really big when arboreal prey animals are involved. Lemurs, sugar gliders monkeys great apes.
not sloths, Sloth.
Bats also have forward facing eyes I think (correct me on this please!), but most of them aren’t carnivorous. They eat fruits and bugs and stuff.
They eat fruits and bugs and stuff.
Well, if they hunt bugs, they are predators, no?
Predators yes, carnivores no. Things that eat bugs are insectivores.
Honestly though, almost no mammals are purely carnivorous, herbivorous, or insectivorous. The majority of species will opportunistically eat what is available.
Yeah, and you don’t have to be a carnivore to be a predator.
I would assume insects would be evolutionarily similar to other types or prey.
Although I’m not sure most bats have forward facing eyes anyway.
Aye-Ayes and Tarsiers have very forward facing eyes, yet eat mostly gruvs in trees.
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Besides humans, aren’t most apes prey animals?
I don’t think anything is preying upon gorillas, the biggest predators for chimps are chimps and humans, though young ones are taken by birds too
Humans in the wild are prey to crocodile, big cats, bears, wolves and young ones from an even longer list
Humans and chimpanzees are definitely predators. Humans who lived through the recent ice age outside the tropics were pure carnivores as no edible plants grow on glaciers; all the big animals and most of the dangerous ones went extinct just after humans got to an area
Bonobos eat fruit. Not much eats them
The apes are all pretty good at defending themselves and are their own worst enemy
What do you mean by prey animals? Animals that prey on others or are you calling them prey themselves? And just because an animal is a predator doesn’t mean there aren’t larger predators that will kill and eat them. Ultimately most apes are omnivores who eat fruit and berries, along with leaves and other shit, but will eat meat and have been known to prey on animals, yet it’s not their main source of food. They’re not apex predators but they aren’t actively prey.
The same holds true for a lot of animals. There aren’t many purely “vegan” animals. A horse will snack a mouse too if it gets the opportunity.
Plus evolutionary history shows plenty of examples of animals switching from pure carnivore to pure herbivore to omnivores in between, and back the other direction. All birds are descended from a common carnivorous ancestor, but plenty of birds today subsist mostly on seeds or fruit.
If there is a lot of available biomass to be eaten, nature will find a way and some animal is going to fill that niche. Many of the folivores (herbivores specializing in digesting leaves) that descended from carnivores have to deal with the low nutrient/calorie density of their foods by just eating a lot of it, and have varying levels of microbial symbiosis for helping with that digestion.
I am using the same definitions as the meme
Ah, I guess you are but you put it in a different place in your sentence compared to the comic, which confused me at first as it can be interpreted both ways with how you wrote it. Either way, the rest of my comment should still be relevant.
…too bad for the internet, eh?..
including humans.
Is it actually possible for a fish-like animal to have eyes at the front (i.e. an animal with a hydrodynamic shape that spends all its time underwater)?
I feel like that’s really difficult for evolution to achieve, especially because the mouth has to go somewhere at the front too. I mean, look at where the lights of a high-speed train are placed and their shape.
Intuitively it feels easier to just put the eyes on the side. Plus it feels like there’s a lower risk of damaging them when bumping into something.
Is it actually possible for a fish-like animal to have eyes at the front
was gonna snark “me before coffee” but tbh this is also me after coffee too
I don’t remember what it’s called but I’m pretty sure there is one I saw once and it was kind of terrifying looking.
Barreleyes get sorta close. They look up but can look forward too.
Yes Sharky?
CAN I PLEASE MOVE? I’M SUFFOCATING!
Obligate ram breathing is kind of mind-blowing. They have to swim to flow water through their gills because their gills have no muscles to flap like most fish have.
Only a few sharks are obligate ram breathers, though. Many species are able to take breaks from swimming.
…300 million years, can’t sit still, smh…
The perfect predator. Can’t survive out of water. What are sharks even doing??
Unfortunately I promised the wife Flake tonight.
Protipp: To make this dish more interesting, simply bury the meat in your back yard for a year.
TIL Greenland sharks can live up to 500 years, take 150 years to reach sexual maturity and have a gestation period of up to 18 years. And apparently it takes a year in the back yard to prepare as well.
Last time I saw this kind of comment/meme someone pointed out that dragons are usually depicted with eyes on the sides of their head. What hunts them, I wonder
Horny donkeys
That’s like how in dnd lore the tarrasque, basically the biggest, scariest monster, is always depicted with big spikes on its back. Animals evolve spikes like that to ward off predators. That means something at least used to hunt tarrasques
Actually they develop in its juvenile state when they are vulnerable to more mundane predators but are then retained for sexual selection in adulthood.
There is only one tarrasque in existence, resulting in it taking its sexual frustration out on level 20 adventuring parties and parties that keep making fun of the lore- uh, history- of the world they grew up in.
Human.
Adventurers…
Bigger dragons.
…hobbits…
The Hobbits just piss them off, then humans have to deal with it…
Are we the baddies?
It turns out it’s man.
Axe-u-a-lee…
Arilou Lalee’lay?
It’s not the question if the eyes on the side or in the front, it’s about the capability to be able to focusing on a stereoscopic vision to be able to calculate the distances to the prey or not. Side eyes increase the field of vision, which can be advantageous for fleeing animals, but does not exclude that predators can also use it to strategically locate themselves better in the environment. But it is true that animals with frontal vision are generally predatory.
Well…
There are lots of reasons to have binocular frontal vision. Redundancy, differing info for optic flow, sensitivity, reducing the frontal blind spot, compensating for retinal blind spots, higher frontal resulution, seeing around things, depth perception…
Most of there are good for predators, but predation isn’t the only reason to have them.
They also have to orient themselves in a truely 3D landscape, unlike terrestrial predators who hunt on basically a 2D plane.
Birds of prey (with the exception of owls) also don’t have front-facing eyes, probably for similar reasons* (and they’re stereoscopic vision also works a bit different I think with very different points of focus).*see comments below
Wrong, all birds of prey have front-facing eyes, not only owls
Haha, I’m not a bird person and didn’t bother to look it up. Thanks for the correction!
Although they still don’t look fully front-facing like e.g. in cats, right?
Well, better as front-faces, the capability to focus on a point in front, since a 3D vision is essential for a predator, to be able to accurately calculate distances. Insects and arthropods often combine side and frontal vision, if they are predators, obtaining a vision in practically 360º, for example dragonflies and also jumping spiders or hunters, these usually have two large eyes in front and 6 smaller side eyes. Chameleons solve this with eyes that can move independently, only focusing on the front before the attack. In small animals a wide field of vision is necessary, even if they are predators, since they themselves appear on the menu of others.
Hm, in small animals my previous point of a 2D vs 3D space is also valid. Large land prey animals “only” have to look from side to side to spot predators. Small animals have to look in all 3 dimensions, like sharks
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Being a predator is not a property, its a relation. X is a predator of Y… but not of Z, and is a prey of V and not of W.
Sharks see with their jaws, though.
