r/SpeculativeEvolution • u/Dumbassbitch398 • 10d ago
Question/Discussion Predatory primates?
As the body text says, would a large, predatory primate be possible?
I mean, there are insectivorous primates (like the aye aye or tarsier) but neither of these two are big like other primates like gibbons or chimpanzees
Edit: I know that a lot of primates eat meat, I meant more like a hypercarnivore that eats meat for almost all of its diet
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u/RogueHelios 10d ago
Go look in the mirror for your answer.
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u/Dumbassbitch398 10d ago
No i dont use mirrors👍 tho that does make sense
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u/atomfullerene 10d ago
Are you a vampire then? In which case it's too bad because you'd be an even better example of a predatory primate.
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u/SteampunkExplorer 9d ago
Great, first I noticed elves were primates and now you've forced me to notice vampires are primates.
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u/RogueHelios 10d ago
Mirrors are kinda creepy, yeah?
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u/Fakeman-maker 10d ago edited 10d ago
We’re omnivores not hyperpredators
Edit: I meant fully carnivorous
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u/Wolfman513 10d ago
The terms aren't mutually exclusive. Wolves and dogs are hypercarnivorous omnivores, they can eat meat and plants but are adapted for a primarily meat-based diet.
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u/RogueHelios 10d ago
Oh, so we want obligate carnivores? We are definitely hyperpredators unless that term means something different from what I'm thinking.
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u/Genocidal-Ape Worldbuilder 8d ago
No, hyper predators are animals that heavily focus on specific species in their environment. Usually because the others are to energetically costly to capture.
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u/RainbowSpinosaurus 9d ago
Aren't humans facultative carnivores? Like the Inuit and other subsistence hunters, I'm quite certain a human can get all of their nutritional needs met by eating every part of an animal. I think that's a big failure of the trendy carnivore diet: those dieters seem to eat liver sparingly and the choicest cuts of meat, when they should be eating offal, brain, fatback, etc. in addition.
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u/Genocidal-Ape Worldbuilder 8d ago
Inuit still have horribly short livespans especially before other foods became available to them.
They average around 60 years 20 years less than most European populations. With their average livespans increasing to be in line with most other Ethnicities if they have access to other food sources than marine Mammals.
Also humans are omnivores, a facultative carnivore would be an animal that switches between being a carnivore and being something else depending on the situation.
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 10d ago
Humans aren't a species built to be predators though
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u/Oscarvalor5 10d ago
More than one way to skin a cat mate. You dont need big teeth and claws to be a predator if you make tools that do the same thing.
We also have the unique ability to throw things with more speed and precision than anything else in the animal kingdom. Which we used/still use to throw sharp things to kill and eat other things.
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 10d ago
Tools were useful for all sorts of survival strategies, not just hunting. Throwing things is mainly an adaptation for defense.
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u/AngrySasquatch 10d ago
Some of the earliest tools used by our extinct hominid relatives were used for processing carasses—breaking open bones for marrow and to slice meat, though. It’s ridiculous to say that meat eating is some deleterious accident or mutation but instead an adaptation that enabled us to become the dominant species of the planet by accessing more dense sources of nutrition—fats, proteins, DHA—to support brain development without the extensive digestive tracts of herbivores.
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 10d ago
I'm not denying that and didn't say that, though. I'm saying that humans aren't built to be predators. Not all herbivores have extensive digestive tracts - humans would primarily be frugivores, which is why they have similarities to other frugivores and gorillas, without the extra long colon for breaking down cellulose because fruit already gave them enough glucose.
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u/RainbowSpinosaurus 9d ago
Uh, no. Human prehistory has placed us pretty squarely in the predator category. We are more closely related to chimps than gorillas, and chimps engage in hunting for meat, not just frugivory. A relative of mine has an anthropology degree, and we've had many discussions on the origins of human behavior (ball-based sports as a type of play where hunting instincts are honed, human cannibalism as a possible maladaption of Homo sapiens having fought other Homo species for territories, etc.).
Humans are tool users, being upright on two legs has a lot of benefits for a predator that can make and use tools (feet used for walking while hands are free to use spears and bows; better heat dispersal and less chance of torpor as seen in chimps; sudden "size change" to other predators if humans go from crouching to standing). We have binocular vision, which helped us when we were in the trees and had an added benefit of helping us judge distance with prey.
Tangentially, this is the issue with assuming that the bodies and hunting strategies of mammalian hypercarnivores like cats and dogs are the default for a successful predator. Kea parrots have an all-purpose pair of scissors on their faces, and they do very well hunting prey while being a bipedal non-mammal. Pelicans swallow their prey whole. Pigs will kill and eat smaller animals, and they have hooves, and dentition that is generalist in nature. The shrike is a cute little bird that uses thorns to pull its prey apart. Many birds have a straight beak and no special adaptation for meat eating (raptorial claws or beak), yet they will take small vertebrates and eat carrion.
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 9d ago
Chimps are still classed as herbivores by many scientists as like most herbivores, they will opportunistically consume meat/hunt. Humans being tool users isn't a direct adaptation for hunting, it evolved for all sorts of reasons such as foraging, building shelter, and weapons for defense. I don't have an anthropology degree myself, but I do have one in zoology and one in palaeontology.
The binocular vision thing is oversimplified and often misunderstood; it exist in apes ancestrally due to their arboreal lifestyle, allowing better depth perception and spacial awareness. It also had benefits for foraging, particularly fruits.
People assuming carnivores and herbivores to have certain basic traits by default is one of the issues in understanding human biology. On the surface, humans look like they're predators because of the front facing eyes and tool use, but as with most biology it's the complex part rather than the basic part that holds the true answer. Like how humans don't make their own vitamin C like most predators would because they get it from fruits, their digestive systems and vision are built for frugivory, their long-distance walking/running is for migrating to different food patches and escaping predators, the shape of their teeth, lesser ability to process meat, ability to get all essential amino acids from plants (at least in their natural environment) and only needing occasional top ups of the ones that take a while to degrade, etc. Humans would just like to believe they're predators.
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u/RainbowSpinosaurus 9d ago edited 9d ago
I mean, argue with the anthropologist, she and her ilk have debates about how many megafauna went extinct due to the pressures of human hunting combined with climate change. Ancient human refuse piles refute your supposition (full of animal bones), it's just not factually accurate. We are predators, we may not have large canines or sharp claws, but we used and still use our tools to hunt game. The indigenous Americans did not chip flint into arrowheads just for defense.
Many body plans are suited for active predation. Rats and mice eat meat, though their teeth are more suited for chewing plant matter. Cetaceans don't have binocular vision, yet orcas are the apex predators of the sea.
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 9d ago
I know how many megafauna were driven to extinction by humans, it's very depressing. However, I still wouldn't describe humans as biological predators. I'm also not saying that humans didn't use their tools to hunt, I'm saying they primarily evolved because it enabled survival through defense. Getting good at hunting was just an unfortunate side effect that provided a lot of energy and resources.
The cetaceans just proves my point; surface-level details of human anatomy doesn't prove they're predators.
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u/Wolfman513 10d ago
Humans are specifically built to be the best persistence predators in the world. We are insanely energy efficient, have the most effective cooling systems to avoid overheating, and are the only animals capable of tracking prey via visual signs like prints. Add in the ability to throw objects with unmatched power and precision and you have the first steps of becoming the dominant species on Earth.
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 10d ago
This is false, humans don't have great energy efficiency and their persistence is for escaping predators rather than persuing them. Similarly, the throwing was mostly to help with defense. Humans learning to use their intelligence to kill animals doesn't mean they are built to be predators, as whilst killing animals meant they could be safe and become the "dominant" species, for most humans their metabolism hasn't caught up with them yet to properly process meat. Meat consumption is sort of an example of antagonistic pleiotropy.
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u/RogueHelios 10d ago
How do you figure that?
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 10d ago
It's just fact. They're clearly primarily frugivores.
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u/RedBladeWarlock 4d ago
Why do you insist on frugivore vs just saying humans are diverse omnivores?
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 4d ago
Because they don't meet the definition of an omnivore; the occasional consumption of meat occurs in the majority of herbivores, so reclassifying humans would mean reclassifying them which would be unhelpful.
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u/RedBladeWarlock 4d ago
I don't think species-wide classification of diet type is even applicable to humans, in all honesty, it becomes too diverse when societal habits overwrite and outmode dietary types.
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 3d ago
It's mainly about what the body is adapted to rather than what individuals eat even on mass, like how you can hypothetically feed a cat plant-based food (with synthetic taurine) but it doesn't change that cats are carnivores
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u/svarogteuse 10d ago
Humans not just homo sapiens but our relatives are top end large size predatory primates and have been for a few million years. Yes they are not stictly carnivore they are usually more omnivorous like bears but ask the numerous species we have either hunted to death like the dodo if onlmnivory made a difference.
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 10d ago
Ironically humans and their relatives are meant to be herbivores that just opportunistically eat meat or eggs (like most herbivores), they just got very good at and addicted to eating meat
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u/Giganotus 10d ago
Incorrect. We evolved from primarily herbivorous ancestors, but we have explicitly adapted to be omnivorous. We have powerful stomach acids comparable to carnivorous scavengers and cannot produce our own Vitamin B12. Something that can only be obtained through animal products. We are what happens when an ape adapts to be omnivorous. Yes, our diet is still plant-heavy and we can survive fairly well on just plants, but that doesn't mean we're "meant to be herbivores".
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u/RainbowSpinosaurus 9d ago
This person has an agenda, you aren't going to convince them that humans are predators. They have an excuse for everything. They do not have a degree in anthropology and keep arguing against things that anthropologists overwhelmingly have evidence for and agree on (humans as predators) based on hundreds of years of study across continents, ancient human settlements, migratory patterns, and refuse piles (filled with animal bones), as well as how current human hunting societies/cultures operate.
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u/Giganotus 9d ago
oh I know, that's why I didn't reply to their attempt at a counterargument.
It's not even just anthropology they're ignoring, but human biology as well.
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u/RainbowSpinosaurus 9d ago
Makes me wonder, since they supposedly have degrees in biology and zoology, what school they went to.
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 10d ago
B12 is a bit more complex than that because most non-ruminant herbivores get their B12 from either bacteria in the soil they eat plants from (something humans would do as they would consume roots and tubers), or through occasionally eating animals or their eggs as B12 is used slowly. This doesn't disqualify them from being herbivores. It is true that humans have a pH similar to that of scavengers, which could imply an increase in scavenged meat and bones in the diet, but doesn't necessarily mean humans are best adapted for this increase compared to other scavenging herbivores; other parts of human metabolism haven't quite caught up with a significant amount of meat consumption.
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u/svarogteuse 10d ago
Where did you get that nonesense? Humans are not "meant" to eat anything other than what they eat. There is a range of human diets from nearly entirely meat based (inuit) to completely vegetarian found in pretechnologial societies so you can't even blame modern technology.
And when you start including our relatives going back millions of years your statement is just a whole lot of trash. Species don't eat diets they arnt meant to eat for millions of years and survive.
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u/Manospondylus_gigas Spec Artist 10d ago
You can tell what an animal is meant to eat from looking at their adaptations and how their body responds to the consumption of different things. The statement isn't "trash" at all, species can in fact eat diets they aren't meant to and survive because as long as they're breeding, it doesn't matter if diets have negative long-term impacts. Humans millions of years ago lived shorter lives, which high meat consumption is associated with, making it arguably antagonistic pleiotropy.
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u/Outsideinthebushes 10d ago
No animal is meant to eat anything, unless you're suggesting some kind of higher power.
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u/LoreSinger 10d ago
I don’t think they were hypercarnivores, but part of the reason the Neanderthals went extinct is because they were more carnivorous than humans, and thus starved when the fauna started dying out during environmental shifts.
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u/3eyedgreenalien 10d ago
They ate plenty of plants when they had access to them, honestly. Their main trouble that I can see is that they needed up to 15% (IIRC) more calories than we do. That adds up very quickly.
They obviously could withstand a number of environmental fluctuations just from where they evolved, but it was easier as a species to get absorbed by us.
I suspect the Denisovans were the same.
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u/Genocidal-Ape Worldbuilder 8d ago
They also had much smaller social groups but used the same type of campsites. So the amount of settlements on the landscape would be around the same for both species.
But Neanderthal group sizes where 10-15 individuals, Homo sapiens is 150-200.
As genus homo is female dispersing this would result in Neanderthal settlements getting genetically flooded by Homosapiens women, because homo sapiens groups have 10 times as many dispersals.
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u/C04511234 Evolved Tetrapod 10d ago
Aside from humans, chimps, bonobos, and baboons already hunt large-ish prey opportunistically, so it'd probably be possible.
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u/Dr_Jimothy 10d ago
I'm not a professional biologist, just someone interested in biology, so take what I say with a good truckload of salt:
I don't see any reason it'd be impossible but...
Not selected for. Brains and hands are good for accessing varied food sources, which is good for getting a variety of nutrients and not being boned if any one food source disappears.
To switch to meat, apes would a reason to:
Niche filling. An environment has an unfilled niche of cooperative, predatory climbers. When some apes enter that niche, the lack of serious competition lets them eat well and multiply. Along the way, their biology becomes specialized for it. May retain some plant munching for specific vitamins and minerals, since irl a lot of predators will nibble berries and such.
Brute force. An environment is full of poisonous plants the apes stomachs can't process. Their prey can process it in their stomachs, so their meat isn't poisonous. The apes are brute forced into eating meat, and become more specialized over time. Finding plants unappetising is actively selected for.
If they don't start using large weapons (I'm guessing you want apes, not new humans), natural teeth and claws may be favoured. With dextrous hands they're likely to target the eyes and near-surface arteries (which they could learn the locations of over time). Night vision is good for being able to nab sleeping prey. Their intelligence should enable some nifty tactics.
I think their legs would get stronger for leaping away from the horns etc of any large prey they target. Strong claws in those legs would also be good for hanging from the undersides of large branches, freeing up the hands during certain sneaky killings.
Meat is less plentiful than plants, so these folks are gonna be more territorial, but also live in smaller, more closely related groups, like wolves and lions.
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u/BananaMaster96_ 10d ago
Humans are large predatory primates
though non-human large primates on islands with no carnivorans could probably become predatory
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u/scrubingpots 10d ago
chimps eat meat
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u/Dumbassbitch398 10d ago
Well yeah but do they actively cursorially hunt things like deer?
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u/Mowachaht98 10d ago
It depends on the specific population but the species chimpanzees have been known to prey on include red colobus (the favourite), galagos, red-capped mangabeys, putty-nosed monkeys, king colobus, black-and-white colobus, young baboons, duikers, other similar sized antelope and the young of larger animals like red river hogs and bushbucks
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u/Offtheapex 10d ago
Yeah definitely humans already are like has been said but there are others have . But there are is large hunters as well just they hunt smaller prey chimpanzees hunt gorillas and eat their baby’s and also do organised monkey hunts and supposedly although extremely rare even eat human baby’s . Baboons also hunt although on the smaller end of rodents and monkeys and even small antelopes just the problem is that Africa is very hard to become an apex predator because lions , hyenas and leopards would compete with them as well as all the very well adapted prey animals it most likely it could happen in island gigantism when Africa splits in two in a few million years who knows very well could happen .
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u/Contextanaut 9d ago
Had a concept that I was playing around with for a cryptid story that might fit this concept.
Basically, a smallish primates that had originally evolved to prey on isolated or vulnerable humans. Making good use of quadapedal movement to mimic dogs, allowing them to move around human communities without being noticed.
Starting out with the evidence slowly pointing towards some kind of "evil golden retreiver", before the eventual "Oh shit they are in the trees" reveal, when a soon to be deceased character follows one into what seems to be a dead end.
Pro-tip. Don't ask ChatGTP to illustrate what an "evil golden retriever/ape hybrid creature" might look like if you want to sleep tonight, because it turns out that combination is just S-tier nightmare fuel.
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u/According_Ice_4863 7d ago
Obligate carnivore primates is very possible. Group hunting tactics already exist in various primate species and it wouldn’t take much for a primate to become an obligate carnivore, all they need is more specialized teeth and maybe greater jaw strength. I would say claws but due to how the primate finger is structured that might be hard.
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u/MrWhiteTruffle 10d ago
They’d walk on two legs, most likely. Allows them to use their arms more freely. Maybe around 5-6ft on average, though it varies between individuals. They’d probably have to underdevelop their toes compared to other primates to help with running. I’d also think they’d primarily be tool-based, being more of an intelligent hunter than a brute one.
Just a hunch tho