Lions are incapable as a species
I’m not a professional Lion… science… guy… so take this with a grain of salt, I’m just using my observational skills to notice a pretty basic fact about Lions and other carnivores that no one has yet noticed, mostly because we’re a pretty fucked up society and we need to lionise Lions or else we’ll realise the people we choose to lead us are also incapable as a species.
So you see this nature documentary, right? There’s a Lion and he’s sitting around and the Antelope (they’re Wildebeest, turns out, like I said I’m not a Lion science guy) are just… like… hanging around. Maybe the Lion isn’t hungry, you think, or maybe you’re like “how magnanimous of the Lion to let these creatures live” or whatever.
Later, it’s on. The hunt; the Lioness creeps up on her prey, the music quietens, and then. Percussion! The Lioness leaps out, and the Antelopes sensing danger start running, but the Lioness has her eye on one in particular. There’s a thrilling chase, and then… just as soon as it started, it ends. Maybe the Antelope is caught, maybe it gets away, but the tension is released. “Wow”, you think, “Lions are fucking cool”.
But like… think about it. Why aren’t there more Lions? You could say this thing about Antelopes breeding faster but they’re mammals. They give live birth. They can’t lay ten billion fertilised Antelope eggs and just piss off. Each new Antelope takes a significant amount of effort to make. That’s not even thinking about the fundamental limits there are to finding food as an enormous herd of Antelope.
Oh, and there are a lot of those fuckers around. There’s like 1 Lion pride to a thousand Antelope (apparently the ratio changes but obviously if there’s no Antelope there’s no Lion), so what gives? Why don’t the Lions just breed more, have more kids, and the kids eat the Antelope?
At this point you’d be sitting there envisioning the Lion King or whatever, it’s the magnamity. They’re kings of the jungle, they know not to breed too much, it’s all… the balance. They maintain the balance of nature.
They’re fucking Lions! They would breed if they could. But the Antelope are faster.
And this is the key bit. Lions are kind of incapable next to the Antelope. There’s an old saying that you don’t have to outrun the Lion, you just have to outrun your slowest companion. Let’s say a Lion pride eats 10% of the Antelope; that means that the pride fundamentally can’t catch 90% of the Antelope. If they could, there would be more Lions.
Now think about the bottom 10% least capable humans. The flat earthers, the qanons, the science deniers. Imagine them dying. I mean, you’re still sad about it… but also secretly relieved? Maybe that’s how Antelope feel. Like “I guess I’m somewhat thankful for that Lion taking out Jerry. He was nice but I just could not stand him talking about the faked moon landing.” Lions eat the most incapable Antelopes because Lions are incapable as a species of hunting Antelope effectively.
I get it, Lions are Apex predators, but “Apex” just means “on the top”, it doesn’t confer any actual skill to that position. Antelope are badass. Lions are bottom feeders.
Feel free to use this in your next stand up routine.
