Humans specifically adapted to be ambush predators

Humans as Ambush Predators

Homo sapiens and many of our ancestors practiced a form of hunting known as persistence hunting where we just walk after an animal till it keels over dead from exhaustion. Alternatively, there is ambush predation where the hunter attacks prey from a concealed location or sneaks up on prey. Granted, humans are capable of both types of predation but are morphologically best adapted to the former.

So, let's say that evolution went a different way. Instead of humans as pursuit predators, humans turned into ambush predators. How are they morphologically different than their pursuit predation cousins?

Requirements: Homo pouncus must still be a tool user and tool maker. Physical appearance can be whatever best facilitates ambush predation. The common ancestor between homo pouncus and homo sapiens is australopithecus africanus.

Scope: This question is limited to only physiological differences between a pursuit predator human and an ambush predator human. How this human may have evolved or how their psychology might differ our own are both outside the scope of this question.

posted about 8 years ago

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