> We are not the strongest, nor the biggest, nor the fastest, nor the best hearing, or the best seeing species.
That is not strictly true. Even leaving aside the tools argument (a human on a bicycle is vastly more energy efficient over long distances than a wildebeest, for example), our sight and hearing are actually pretty good compared to the rest of the animal kingdom.
For a certain range of tasks, we have the best visual perception of any species. Our eyes themselves are pretty damn good for close-in and medium range work. The pattern recognition processing that input is very, very good due to our big brains. Tasks like being able to detect a tiger moving through the underbrush. Color vision is also very good (at least in daylight) to better pick out ripe fruit and such.
Our directional hearing is better than owls who hunt at night for a living. We can better measure the angle at which a sound source is coming from with around twice the accuracy of an owl. Again due to big brains and very complicated audio processing. The folds in your ears are there for a reason. We aren't as sensitive as other creatures like deer, who can steer their big ears (basically parabolic horns) in a particular direction.
And hand-eye coordination is far above any other species, even other primates.
Can't this just be chalked down to acquired skill made possible through superior intelligence? i.e
if other animals could practice and learn as effectively at us, perhaps a silverback gorilla or something could throw better than humans
I don't think so. As far as I know, other primates' arms lack our range of motion – for example, chimpanzees are unable to touch the back of their heads; that makes powerful throwing basically impossible.
I don't have a linky for this, but I'm sure people have tried to teach apes & chimps to throw. Aside from chimps teaching themselves to throw poo at zoo visitors.
But in general they don't have the neural hardware to precisely time the release as accurately as we do. Even a millisecond difference changes the trajectory a lot.
No source either, but I believe it also has to do with the composition of our muscle fibers. Other apes have more powerful fibers, but this comes at the cost of less accuracy. Throwing requires both.
A human on a bicycle is only more efficient than a wildebeest if the course being traveled is paved. If you had to bike the path a wildebeest roams you might not make it.
True, I remember reading that humans are the only animals that sweat. Some animals like hippos create thick oily sebaceous sweat but I don't think any other animals just spill water from their pores like us. That's what gives us such incredible endurance
I was intrigued by your comment, and did five minutes research,
Apparently you're half right - pretty much every mammal will sweat to some degree (its almost a defining feature of mammals - mammary glands are modified sweat glands) - but only a limited number of mammals sweat heavily, horses being another notable example.
No, endurance hunting is mostly about running. To quote Wikipedia [1]:
"Persistence hunting (sometimes called endurance hunting) is a hunting technique in which hunters, who may be slower than their prey over short distances, use a combination of running, walking and tracking to keep pursuing prey over prolonged time and distance until it is exhausted by fatigue or overheating. A persistence hunter must be able to run a long distance over an extended period."
That is not strictly true. Even leaving aside the tools argument (a human on a bicycle is vastly more energy efficient over long distances than a wildebeest, for example), our sight and hearing are actually pretty good compared to the rest of the animal kingdom.
For a certain range of tasks, we have the best visual perception of any species. Our eyes themselves are pretty damn good for close-in and medium range work. The pattern recognition processing that input is very, very good due to our big brains. Tasks like being able to detect a tiger moving through the underbrush. Color vision is also very good (at least in daylight) to better pick out ripe fruit and such.
Our directional hearing is better than owls who hunt at night for a living. We can better measure the angle at which a sound source is coming from with around twice the accuracy of an owl. Again due to big brains and very complicated audio processing. The folds in your ears are there for a reason. We aren't as sensitive as other creatures like deer, who can steer their big ears (basically parabolic horns) in a particular direction.
And hand-eye coordination is far above any other species, even other primates.
Don't sell yourself short!