sarameg, that eyelid-twitch thing happens to me when I'm under stress. Or when I think of my boss. Same thing.

DavidS "F2F5: I forget that everyone isn't us" Jun 18, 2009 8:22:40 pm PDT

Interesting, I'd missed that, and the follow-up:

Is that news? They are the only land predator that actively hunts humans.

::waits for billytea or Theo to correct him::

This isn't true. There are of course many species that don't normally hunt humans but will in some circumstances. That applies to tigers, lions, and IIRC most especially leopards. Black bears too - interestingly, if a brown bear is threatening you, it's probably because it felt threatened by you first; but if a black bear is doing so, it's probably peckish. Nonetheless, I'd agree that they don't count (possible exception of the leopard, which doesn't seem to take much to become a man-eater), because it's not their common behaviour. The polar bear most certainly differs in this regard.

However, the point at which we're being too narrow is in limiting ourselves to mammalian predators. The shark and the crocodile, of course, are not land-based; but there are other reptiles that fit the bill. I give you the anaconda, reticulated python, African rock python, Burmese python and possibly (if the human is small enough) even the Australian scrub python or the boa constrictor. Interestingly, there's a now extinct eagle from New Zealand that may at one time also hunted humans - Haast's eagle would have been big enough to do so, and in the relatively short overlap between Maoris arriving and it going extinct, it probably wouldn't have learnt much fear of humans.

There is, however, at least one other land predator that, while not overly successful at hunting humans, will do so with impunity, should the opportunity arise. Take a guess what it might be.

(oooo - animal facts! much like my Tolkien trivia, but non-trivial and *useful*)

I remember reading about Haast's - but I hadn't realized there were so many large snakes.

There was an eagle big enough to prey on humans?

F*cking f*ck. California is starting to give IOUs to welfare recipients. Seriously? Yeah, 'cause they can really hold out and wait for the cash. This is ridiculous.

There was an eagle big enough to prey on humans?

Yup. Died out about 1400 AD. It's speculation whether it did prey on humans, and it may have been wary of a full-grown man, but its staple prey were moas, which weighed up to 230 kg. It was big enough to take out a human.

My living room smells of kitty farts.

megan, for real? I've seen the headlines but stayed away from reading beyond, out of a feeling of despair.

A million years ago, when I worked in a bank and Gray Davis was the State Comptroller, when they issued IOUs rather than checks, Wells Fargo honored them in the expectation that the state would one day make good on them. So it may not be as bad as it sounds. But it's still bad.

I guess it's a good week to be donating to a California soup kitchen.

I am corrected on the man-hunting critters. Even amongst mammals I think leopards probably count. Whether a cheetah would go after Nutty is a subject for debate, however.

I like thinking about the Haast eagle swooping down on Antonin Scalia and dragging him (kicking) off into the sky.

I'm surprised about black bears since they seem to be the big pussies of the ursine world, constantly getting treed by kittens and fierce looking voles and whatnot.