Here then are ten of the animals likely to have killed our ancient and not so ancient kin. The fact that you are alive means your direct ancestors escaped these fates, if not forever then at least long enough to reproduce.
1. Lions and tigers and leopards, oh #$*@!
Leopards are extraordinarily good at eating primates. They are stealthy. They run fast (at least faster than our ancestors). They leap powerfully (up into primates’ sleeping trees). And they can carry great weights (our bodies) to wherever it might be safe for them to pause and dine. With this combination of traits, leopards have been breathing down our necks for as long as 10 million years.
Today’s leopards show what our ancestors had to contend with. In one study in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, 70 percent of baboon deaths were attributed to African leopards. In another study, half of the mammals that leopards killed were monkeys or chimpanzees; they also kill young gorillas. When scientists pick through leopard scat, many of the bones they find are from primates—ribs, fingers, toes and skulls, all of them remarkably similar to our own skeleton. Baboons seem to get eaten by leopards at night, monkeys during the day. Scientists, on the other hand, are most likely to get eaten when they pause while picking through leopard scat to say, “Hey, I think this looks fresh!”
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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...past-18257965/
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Originally Posted by tommyrp12
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