Just so ya know, a regular modern day crocodile can also outrun you on land.
Not to alarm anyone, but unless you’re doing the 100m in around 11s or less, current large crocodiles are still faster than you. But if you’re fit enough to keep the speed going, you should outlast them over short enough distance.
And if you can’t do any of that, well you’ll have to run lateral to it and hope your agility out maneouvers them.
Mythbusters tested whether it was better to zig zag or run straight away from a gator. Turns out, it doesn’t matter, gators won’t chase you.
Some Floridaman has. Apparently their jaws are really good for chomping down, but not that great for opening back up. So, you belly flop on the thing from behind, and it can’t really do a thing to you while you take some shoelaces and tie the gator’s jaws shut. At that point you can transfer the gator to a different swamp that isn’t inhabited by Floridaman. At least that’s the best description I have, of the technique I watched the guy use.
It doesn’t necessarily matter. They just don’t like running after prey.
They can make swift dashes on land to catch prey sunbathing or something that’s escaping, but that’s the limits of what they’d like to do.
It’s like Pandas. They’re cute as hell, but if it wasn’t for us, they’d have died out already. They’ve evolved themselves to a point where all they eat is one specific plant, and they have such a low sex drive that we can’t even show them Panda Porn to get them horny. We literally have to extract sperm from their balls and inject it into the uterus of the female to make baby pandas.
Evolution is lazy is what I’m trying to say.
Or that you have the adequate weapons on you, the knowledge and physical ability to use them properly.
Alligators can already outrun a person on land.
They just choose not to. Because they’re lazy and they don’t like running after their prey.
I suspect the same was probably true of whatever it was we killed off back then too.
Flat solid land? Nah, person wins on any distance over a few feet.
Through brush and marsh? Nobody beats the gator.
That’s not true. And another one.
TL;DR;
They can run up to 35mph over short (20-30ft) distances. Then they can run at a slightly slower (though faster than most humans) pace for a sustained period of roughly 100 feet (30ish meters for the non-'mericans).
In every scenario they can and will catch every human on earth except an Olympic sprinter. And even then, it wouldn’t be a comfortable race for them.
The reason they don’t chase you down and eat you on land, is because they’ve evolved to be ambush predators from water transitions to land. They are lazy. Simple as that. And their food comes to them in most cases. Why would they want to spend all those calories just to maybe get a un-tasty human? They conserve energy so they can perform several ambush attempts for prey, rather than one long chase.
In the end, their current approach gets them more calories for the efforts, which is why they’ve evolved that way.
But they can, on paper, absolutely wipe the floor with you in a sprint over solid, flat land. For 100 feet.
Yeah, humans are pretty slow compared to most animals. We’re good at long distance running, but nearly every animal out sprints us. I’m sure most of us have tried to catch an animal before. I think the only ones I’ve actually caught are turtles on land and snakes, which weren’t trying to run.
You should try reading your source…
“Experts say the American alligator’s top running speed clocks in at 11mph.”
I a fat outta shape slouch, but I think in a life or death situation I could manage 11mph for a few minutes.
Sure they can burst a good bit of speed, but that 20-30 ft sprint mostly comes from them lunging with all 4 legs and their tail as hard as they can and then maybe 1 or 2 more lunges and some scrabbling.
It’s mainly a matter of weight and gait. They got stubby little side protruding legs and they weight a ton incomparison to their leg musculature. They can high walk for a good distance, and they can gallop, but only for a few steps.
They can only do that for about half of one body length though. It’s not really a run, so much as a spring forward to surprise something with their murder mouth, and then pull it back into the water.
A mighty steed!
You cannot prove that humans didn’t ride these into battle.
Oh shit, sadam is that you?
