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Comments on How do I realistically keep my large mammalian predator hidden from other pack hunters.

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How do I realistically keep my large mammalian predator hidden from other pack hunters.

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What coloration pattern/ technique could a large mammalian predator employ to evade detection from other mammalian predators at 100 -> 20 meter distances (or close enough so that it could sprint into them, and run away).

In my world building scenario there exists what essentially amounts to a Giant Hyena. This animal has the following characteristics:

  • It's 3000kg

  • It hunts mostly solo

  • It has amazing sense of hearing and smell (but otherwise not particularly spectacular eyesight)

  • It is "smart" however you want to take that.

  • It gets its food from scaring away other scavengers from opportunistic meals

  • It has massive neck and jaw muscles

  • It also gets food from tracking pack hunters, figuring out the size of the group from a long distance away using its advanced sense of hearing and smell, then using its powerful jaws to pick one of the animals off and run away with it

  • It lives in what is essentially the African Savannah and slightly wetter places. So it would prey on other Hyenas, Painted dogs, and Lions.

In order to sneak up on pack predators, it needs to be able to get in close enough undetected, so at the right moment it can pick up one of the pack members and sprint away with a meal. I don't need something that works 100% of the time, just enough that it won't go extinct because of the failure rates.

Changing the environment to a degree is acceptable.

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General comments (2 comments)
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What you are asking for is unrealistic. 3000 kg is huge. That's over four times the mass of a typical rhinoceros, for example.

Being really large like that lets it bully its way to some other animal's kill. Even as a carcass scavenger, it will be very tough to find enough carcasses or others' kills to feed that huge mass. Note that terrestrial animals anywhere near that size are all herbivores. There is a good reason for that.

Carnivores need to be fast and agile. You can't be either of those while dragging around 3000 kg. Note that the largest carnivores actually get most of the food by scavenging than by killing it themselves. Grizzly bears are a good example. They don't hunt down deer, moose, or whatever, because they'd never catch a normal healthy animal.

The largest terrestrial (aquatic environment has totally different tradeoffs, but that is not what you asked about) mainly-carnivore is probably the polar bear. But, it does that by hunting very specific prey on land where the prey can't move well. Polar bears and wolves overlap ranges in some places, but polar bears don't regularly take down wolves. They also don't take down caribou, but wolves do.

So, your large animal is a scavenger at best, although even that is doubtful.

3000kg is huge, but that's no where near the largest size a terrestrial carnivore ever, T Rex by comparison was 8000kg to 15000kg

T. rex lived in a very different environment. You'd have to change a lot of things for an animal like that to make any sense today. However, the real point is that T. rex was likely not a carnivore at all, but a scavenger. To be fair though, reputable scientists still disagree about that one.

Additionally the animal I propose is not fast and agile, and like other large animals carnivores and other animals, like bears, would rely on sprinting for short distances

But what it is supposedly catching can also sprint for short distances. You said that your animal's prey is "pack hunters". Those are able to run quickly, because that's how they catch their own dinner.

If this could work, then why don't grizzly bears do exactly what you propose for your animal? Grizzly bears and wolves have overlapping ranges. A grizzly could certainly kill a wolf if it could catch one, and grizzlys can sprint reasonably fast for a short distance. Think about why they don't. Now consider that your animal is considerably bigger, and therefore less agile, than a grizzly bear.

Finally, I didn't ask if my creature was possible to begin with, my question was about hiding such an animal at certain ranges.

It's rather difficult to posit what the hiding strategy might be of a creature that can't exist.

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General comments (3 comments)
General comments
Cazadorro‭ wrote over 4 years ago

3000kg is huge, but that's no where near the largest size a terrestrial carnivore ever, T Rex by comparison was 8000kg to 15000kg, and much more comparable in mass to it's own prey, being even larger than some (Edmonosaurus was 9000kg for example), heck, my Giant Hyena even shares some of the same characteristics of T-Rex (highly developed smell, crushing instead of slicing teeth). Additionally, the largest mammalian terrestrial carnivore was around 1500kg.

Cazadorro‭ wrote over 4 years ago · edited over 4 years ago

Additionally the animal I propose is not fast and agile, and like other large animals carnivores and other animals, like bears, would rely on sprinting for short distances, shorter distances than other carnivores, hence why I said it needed to be so close to pick prey off and get just enough distance that it wouldn't be. They would work a lot like large rhinos do when sprinting.

Cazadorro‭ wrote over 4 years ago

Finally, I didn't ask if my creature was possible to begin with, my question was about hiding such an animal at certain ranges. I even specified it's hiding strategy didn't need to work 100% of the time (or even 10% apparently!), and that environmental changes could be part of what makes it work.