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From: g-rh@cca
Newsgroups: net.bio
Subject: Re: bipedalism
Message-ID: <7648@cca>
Date: Sat, 3-May-86 09:53:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: cca.7648
Posted: Sat May  3 09:53:00 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 11-May-86 16:51:59 EDT
References: <840@mhuxt>
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In article <> michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (michael maxwell) writes:
>In article <397@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> palmer@cit-vax.UUCP (David Palmer) writes:
>>A hunting human can eventually catch up with just about any animal,
>>(assuming that it doesn't hide or burrow) just by walking at a pace
>>that the prey cannot use efficiently.  Of course, this doesn't help
>>if you are being chased by a cheetah, but if you are chasing an impala,
>>you can eventually tire it out and catch up with it
>
>I'd heard this before (in Analog, a science fiction/ science fact magazine),
>but I had/ have trouble believing it.  Has it ever *really* been "proven"?
>What's the original source?

	I don't have sources at hand, but it's probably true.  Apaches
used to catch horses by walking them down.  It was an all day proposition,
but the Apache could go all day at an average pace that a grass grazing
horse cannot maintain.  The high speed predators (cheetah, impala, et. al.)
can run at impressive speeds, but they can't maintain them for very long.
My recollection is that the cheetah can hit 70 mph but can only maintain
that speed for a few hundred feet.

	Richard Harter, SMDS Inc.