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annomandaris t1_j5wenpx wrote

Horses are the only animals that can outrun us over distances.

The key difference is sweat glands and the ability to cary water. Humans have sweat glands all over their body, horses also have a large area they can sweat from.

This means other animals can run, or get rid of heat, but not both at the same time, whereas humans can run for many hours if they have water. And eventually the animal they are chasing wil overheat.

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Joe30174 t1_j5wfvmz wrote

Interesting, I didn't know about that at all. What about camels?

Also, my response was to argue against that we are the most stamina efficient land mammals. We'll not argue, but note that I have heard (watched a science video on it not too long ago) that there are land mammals that DONT run and are more stamina efficient than humans.

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annomandaris t1_j63phyg wrote

I dont know about stamina efficiency, humans superpower is that we can get rid of heat efficiently. Take wolves, they can only sweat thru their paws, and their main way to lose heat is by panting, which they cant do while running. So if you were to just keep after them, even if your slower, they will eventually pass out from heat stroke. The same applies to other animals.

Meanwhile the human is jogging after them, sweating all over, the faster they run the more efficient the sweat evaporating is, and they can drink or pour water over them selves as well.

Thats why we win persistance hunting.

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I-dont-rickroll t1_j5y81nj wrote

Horses can only do it in cold weather, in hot weather we still beat them.

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