When Herbivores Attack
April 24, 2013
8:20 am
It has been a month full of watching 3D dinosaurs and hanging out with Jeff Goldblum.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
Updated Mondays or whenever I feel like it
It has been a month full of watching 3D dinosaurs and hanging out with Jeff Goldblum.
I’ve always been waiting for someone to realize this. Thanks for the amazing comics, Coela!
That movie is a family-friendly movie (Yeah right. Severed limb? T-Rex lunges & chew you alive? Brilliant.)
Gave -me- nightmares as a kid. Recurring ones, about losing limbs in a card game with the T-Rex.
Competitive betting with a T-Rex could cost you an arm & a leg…
Haha :D go, hippo! And yeah, that’s pretty much what I was expecting from Jurassic Park when I first watched the movie, but it never happened.
That is because Spielberg kinda sucks. “Jaws” was good though.
We’re gonna need a bigger boat.
“It won’t hurt us.”
Famous last words, indeed.
More people die from hippos every year than any other animal in Africa
Wait even more then elephants? You’d think people would avoid hippo water holes.
It’s not always that easy. Hippos are land animals as well, and they’re extremely territorial. All it would take is one to be closer than you thought, or someone in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And the things look like they’re slow, pudgy plodders that spend all their time wading in the muck. Most people look at a hippo, and they wouldn’t think that the cute li’l rolly-polly can hit up to 50 kph/30 mph at a dead run (that is, faster than most humans).
Uhh, 30 mph is faster than ALL humans.
By a significant degree. The world record is about 3 min and 43 sec for a mile, which equates to about 16.2 miles per hour.
A hippo wouldn’t keep chasing you for a full mile, though. Usain Bolt managed 44.72 kph during a 100 meter sprint. If you were a world-class sprinter and you got a bit of a headstart, you’d have a decent chance of evading the hippopotamus.
(Not that I would recommend hippo-baiting as an hobby, no matter how fast you can run.)
Now that would make a cool new Olympic sport, instead of all the professional crap that keeps getting added (crap that already has it’s own world championships, some every year like Rugby 7’s)
Usain’s record (and, to be fair, all modern track and field records) was under literally the best possible conditions sport science has to offer, though. I doubt even he would be able to replicate his feat in the savannah while being chased by an angry hippopotamus.
But that is a averaged out speed by a mile in racing conditions. Hippos wouldn’t run for a mile, so the short distance speed of a human can be much faster. plus, there are other factors, a runner filled with the adrenaline of competition wouldn’t be nearly as fast as a runner motivated by fear. Plus, what were capable in competions isnt nearly as strong as what were truely capable of. A good example is that of a monkey, much stronger than a human normaly is because it doesnt have the same built in to prevent damage to the body mental limiters as we do. in times of extreme stress, those limiters are automatically removed when survival is at risk. which is why we sometimes get people who end up being able to lift a car a bit or something during dire situations.
“A good example is that of a monkey, much stronger than a human normaly is because it doesnt have the same built in to prevent damage to the body mental limiters as we do.”
No. I’m sorry, as a biologist I have to tell you that is total nonsense.
a) Apes (and monkeys, but let’s talk about apes because they are roughly the same size as humans) are several times stronger than humans, because their skeletal musculature is stronger at a molecular level. A human muscle fiber needs to be several times the diameter of an ape’s muscle fiber to exert the same force. Somewhere in our hominid evolutionary history when our ape ancestors diverged from the common ancestor we share with chimpanzees, we acquired a point mutation in a gene that codes for muscle proteins. Humans effectively suffer from amyosthenia (muscle weakness) compared to apes. But this disadvantage not only survived but spread through the gene pool because it forced the hominids to rely on tools to hunt and prepare food, and fire to cook raw meat and tough roots that we cough no longer chew on our own. There is even a hypothesis that the fact that our weaker and shorter jaw musculature is attached to our skull below the ears and not to a bone ridge at the top of the cranium (as it is with apes) meant that our skull was able to expand up and outwards to give the brain space to grow.
b) All vertebrates have built-in “self-damage prevention”, it’s called pain receptors. By your logic, apes would be constantly damaging their own muscles, sinews and bones because they’re mindless rampaging machines. No. There are people who are born a rare genetic mutation called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis (CIPA), they lack any pain receptors because their body does not form the nerve cells responsible for transmitting pain from injuries, extreme heat and cold during embryogenesis, which is not a good thing. They can sense pressure, so they have a sense of touch, but that’s it. People with this disorder often die young from accidental injuries, gangrene, infected burn wounds, or heatstroke (because their bodies do not sweat). I’ve seen a documentary about twins who were born with that disorder. By the time they were teenagers they were effectively cripples. As babies, they would often bite into their own fingers and toes until they bled. As children, they would play roughly with each other, flinging themselves against walls for fun, or climbing on trees and jumping down and breaking their own or each other’s bones, no matter how often their parents tried to desperately reign them in. One described how he used to put his hand on a hot stove whenever his parents weren’t looking because the sizzling of his burning skin was “interesting”. They had to be taught to understand that other people would experience this odd sensation called “pain” when they hit them, because they could not relate what pain meant. When they grew older they started to realize what damage they were doing to their own bodies, and regretted it.
I dunno. I saw a picture of a park ranger outrunning one. (Or, at least, that’s how the caption implied it ended. In case, you’re wondering he was somewhat more motivated than is usual for human runners. You know, because there was a hippo behind him moving as fast as it was capable of.)
Most of the people they kill are tourists not paying attention.
That’s because no one expects the Hippo.
OR the Spanish Inquisition.
Monty Python FTW.
A moose once bit my sister …
I got better…
It’s more because when a hippo opens his mouth everybody thinks “aww look the hippo’s sleepy, isn’t that cute.”. Wile the hippo is saying “Hey you trespassers if you don’t move away right now i’m taking you out with these giant teeth that can crush you in seconds.”.
In the world, IIRC.
Not exactly. While the hippopotamus claims more lives than any other LARGE animal, it’s my understanding that the mosquito still kills more humans per annum by virtue of the diseases it carries.
Oh, you and your DATA.
The one android missing from the last comic. Love those famous last words, Coelasquid.
Nah, that doesn’t count. It doesn’t weaponize the disease. If it were venom, it would be different.
Right, lets rephrase that then:
The malaria parasite kills more people per annum then all other animals combined.
Have fun outrunning malaria !
Fun fact: Steve Irwin, the man who faced down some of the most dangerous animals nature has to offer, once said that the most terrifying experience of his life was boating across a river where hippos were floating around. It’s not a good idea to wake the ill-tempered creatures that can bite for over a literal ton of pressure.
Heh i remember that, and that’s coming from the person who wrestled with crocodiles, teased cobras and anacondas for fun
More white people/tourists die of hippo attack than any other animal sans insects (mosquitoes). The native population isn’t stupid enough to get between hippos and the water.
For raw numbers, the non-insect animal with the most kills is the buffalo (cape, mostly), which tends to hide from the sun under bushes and will attack anything that comes close.
I misread that as “hippies”, and then realized I should go to bed.
isnt herbivore pronounced “erbivore” with a silent h? like in hour? in which case it would be an herbivore, not a herbivore
That’s like arguing about whether “the” should be pronounced “thee” or “thuh”.
Actually there are specific rules about that too.
It doesn’t change the fact that they’re both valid uses.
oh my god I am so done with this I am not letting you people goad me into another asinine argument about semantics.
I pronounce the “h”. I’m leaving it at that.
I fully support your position of ‘being done with this shit’
Next week’s comic: Kratos pronounces tomato as tomahto and someone tries to correct him.
If I had 10 dollars to bet, I’d bet that this happens someday.
I think it’ll be after he’s watched some movies where they actually pronounce it that way.
“…and so they were all throwing tomahtoes and”
“Tomatoes”
“THAT’S WHAT I SAID RRRAAAAARRRGH”
Or he and some of the guys could always take a trip to Spain during La Tomatina festival, though, somehow, I think that might end more horribly than expected.
no he is going to watch attack of the killer tomatoes lol
i love all of you people
Good, because next some smartass would start saying “ippo”, and we’d have to kill him.
Also I’m fairly sure the “silent H” of herb is solely in American English, which would mean that if you HAD chosen to put “an herbivore” it would have confused the hell out of anyone speaking a different dialect.
Just sayin’.
Just in case you wanted to be confused/pestered further, I say “a erbivore.”
The correct pronunciation is “herb-ee-thor”.
I think we all agree that fuck English.
It’s not pronounced with a silent h.
Unlike “herb”, which has two correct US-English pronouncinations, “herb” and “erb”, herbivore is always pronounced “herbivore”. (From Latin: herba + vorare = plant + eating)
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/herbivore
erb is in no way correct
the pronounciation of the word is herb (sounding the h) to do otherwise is incorrect
Until yesterday I thought “erb” was incorrect as well, but my research (to make sure my comment wasn’t wrong), both online and in my dictionary at home concluded that “erb” is apparently also correct. Probably because it’s common usage.
I never pronounced it like that personally, since I think it sounds kinda silly, but there you go.
There are people who don’t pronounce the H at the beginning of ANY word. And people who put a H in the beginning of any word beginning with a vowel. (and even people who just never call anything “an”.) With dialects, you can have it either way! If someone mixes up a/an in writing, I just assume they’re being phonetic.
Which Coleasquid’s dialogue is.
And yes, I pronounce H “hai-tch”.
“There are people who don’t pronounce the H at the beginning of ANY word.”
And every one of them a ‘enry.
In ‘ertford, ‘ereford, ‘n’ ‘ampshire, ‘urricanes ‘ardly hever ‘appen?
So is he ‘a ‘enry’ or ‘an ‘enry?’
THE VICIOUS CYCLE BEGINS ANEW.
Wouldn’t have a Willie or a Sam.
Wair, WHAT? How that this even matter for A COMIC PAGE? The word is written here, not pronounced.
The only thing that doesn’t confuse me about this comment is Coleasquid’s ‘done with this shit’ reaction, as not a doktor eloquently words it.
Ok, I wrote it before seeing some comment below that made the issue of “a”/”an” it a bit clearer.
And wow, as much as grammar nazi I find myself to be, this discussion just seem so worthless…
only in ‘merica, friend. in the uk, we actually use that first letter, at least, as far as Herbs are concerned
Liza Doolittle didn’t use it :)
“You say erb and we say herb, because there’s a fucking H in it.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6lJGD3Q9Qs
He who has never been trashed by an Aptonoth, throw the first stone.
INB4, do not throw stones if you never played Monster Hunter, dammit!
Also, go hippo. :D
When some Apthonoth dares to touch me I made a meal of it.
Yet when I was a newbie one did kill me (or made me faint… whatever)
i throw stone anyway
Speaking of herbivores in Monster Hunter. Dat Diablos.
It’s my birthday.
And you’re rubbing it in my face that I missed JP3D due to circumstances beyond my control.
Thanks a lot.
Jurassic Park 3D is hitting the theaters next week here (Netherlands). Since ths start of 3D remakes I was hoping for this one, if only for the awesomeness that is a 3D brachiosaurus sneezing in your face.
But at least you acknowledge the power of Jurassic Park, so I can’t be too mad.
Hippos are carnivores despite popular belief.
Omnivores, actually. That doesn’t make them any less dangerous, though.
They’re herbivores, their digestive tracts are not suited to processing meat. Some eat meat as a sign of stress, but that’s more comparable to people who eat things like glass, tissue paper, and hair. Just because an animals will eat something doesn’t mean it’s food for that animal.
Yeah, I had a dog that ate rocks and dirt sometimes…that didn’t make it a lithovore…
Lithovore… Bwahahahahahah!! XD
The situation is a bit more complicated than that; most herbivores will occasionally eat meat to supply certain nutrients that are rare in a strict vegetable diet – so not only out of stress – or when food is scarce. Likewise, almost all carnivores eat vegetation at times – our cat regularly tries to poison itself nibbling on our Yucca. Stupid animal.
Meat is far easier to fully digest than plant material, and scarvenging is seen in plenty of herbivores; hippos do so less often than swine, but more commonly than ruminants (which do so as well). It is not the same as humans eating undigestible stuff at all; if they are trully stressed they may do that, but there is no such thing as a pure herbivore or a pure carnivore.
You’d think that people raring to be this pedantic this long after the strip went up would at least have the decency to read some of the other discussion before interjecting. Like, literally one comment up from this.
If it’s capable of fighting off a carnivore, it can sure as hell eat your squishy, omnivore butt :DD
A MOOSE IS RAMPAGING!!! FETCH CANADIAN GUY!
Eeeeey der, did summin call fer meh?
Canadian Guy noos ne’er ta ballyrag a bollicky moose. Thar’s secret to’s longevity, b’ye.
And that day canadian became a language.
Yoo be mekkin’ fun o’ meh akksent?
So what do deaf canadians say? Or canadians doing canadian impressions? or deaf canadians doing canadian mime impressions? Or Jared doing a “Commander doing a Canadian Guy impression” impression?
Herbivores are the worst, because they don’t need to be hungry to want to kill you.
Herbivores rarely want to kill, min difference is people see a carnivore “oh shit better back out slowly.” people see a herbivore “look at the cute guy.”. People just don’t realise carnivore of herbivore, step on their territorium or threathen them in any way and they’ll strike whether you’re eatable or not has little to do with it.
Mating season. ’nuff said.
An important difference is that dangerous herbivores are dangerous ALL the time, whereas most carnivores will ignore you when they’re resting and digesting, and you don’t get too close. Not so much out of empathy for us but because they need to be far more careful with their energy consumption and can’t risk getting injured.
you make a very valid point!!!
Ah, you also forgot bears. Most bears are herbivores too, but they’ll mess you up if you scare them.
How’s Jeff in person?
Bears are omnivores. They’re really opportunity eaters. If it’s there, they’ll eat it because of hibernation. They do prefer plant material though.
The thing is, herbivores are for the most part also prey animals so they’re actually more dangerous than the carnivores. Even nature has paranoia and all that.
Who do you think invented paranoia? :P
You guys, everyone who gets scared of an armadillo, and the CIA.
Excepting polar bears of course, which are carnivores.
He said “most”, not “all”, though I agree with nick that most bears being omnivores would be more accurate.
Which is pretty weird, considering just how closely they’re related to grizzlies.
It’s not that they won’t hurt you (they can and will) it’s that they won’t eat you.
Things Monster Hunter has taught me the hard way, for 100 Alex!
I new Herbivores would be mans downfall!
should be “an herbivore” in the first panel, just in case you felt the need to change that.
otherwise, great comic!
…No, I don’t think it is supposed to be ‘an herbivore’, since the h is by no means supposed to be silent. I dont call someone ‘an hoser’, nor is the expression ‘an helping hand’.
Different pronunciations of herbivore. Americans say it with a silent ‘h’ for sure.
Do we? I’ve always pronounced herbivore with the H, and honestly can’t recall anyone (save for someone doing an awkward “British” accent) pronouncing it without the H. I think people have very strange ideas of how everyone else talks (now herb can go without the H sound, but that’s neither here nor now)
Only if they’re pronouncing it wrong!
I don’t tend to notice others’ pronunciations of much, but I grew up with all incarnations of ‘herb’ (and thus ‘herbivore’) having a silent ‘h’. I didn’t even know it was correct anywhere to pronounce it! I don’t recall ever specifically saying it, but if asked before seeing this I’d have lumped it in with the ‘dumb language mistakes’ on the same level as verbalizing the ‘t’ in ‘often’ or the like. Learn something new every day, I guess?
(for the record, I am very American, but I have not the foggiest where influences for how I talk come from due to having grown up a military brat and moved around during my childhood.)
also for the record idrc about the comic I’m just laNGUAGE DISCUSSION THIS SOUNDS COOL
YersiniaP
April 24, 2013, 5:20 pm | Reply
It’s not pronounced with a silent h.
“Unlike “herb”, which has two correct US-English pronouncinations, “herb” and “erb”, herbivore is always pronounced “herbivore”. (From Latin: herba + vorare = plant + eating)
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/herbivore”
As quoted by someone above there in this same stupid argument.
As the recipient of many sheep-induced bruises over the years, I absolutely love this.
Yeah, well…They don’t name the male as a “ram” for irrelevant reasons, ya’ know…
True enough. Ironically, however, most of my bruises have come from pushy ewes. When you have a flock of horned girls surrounding you as distribute their grain, manners tend to get pushed aside. The rams are fewer in number, and get sterner training in etiquette.
Call me crazy, but I think that in a situation with something the size of a brachiosaurus, it’d probably be more along the lines of a whale encounter. Yeah, it could definitely kill you dead, but it’s so big and you’re so small that you don’t really register in the ‘threat’ spectrum…unless there’s a baby involved.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that it’d be more like an orca or a dolphin and just kill you for the fun of it…
The movie made them seem like giant cows. I can’t help but think this is far more accurate as to how it would go.
It’s not as if a cow would be any better, I’ve been in a vehicle a bull decided it was upset with, not fun.
There is a big difference between a cow and bull. There attitudes are very far apart. Also there gender, obviously.
10 people die from shark attacks every year. 100 people die from being stepped on by brachiosaurs. Fear the real killer.
Damn right.
I grew up on a ranch. I can assure you that cows, while generally calm and placid, can get cranky too. Particularly around calving season. I’ve come a hair’s breadth from being mowed down more than once by a cow that decided I looked at her calf funny.
Depends on the breed, whether or not the cow is alone or in a herd (an herd? J/K), and the individual cow. When I was growing up, we raised Angus and Saler cross for beef. Most Angus were reasonably mellow, but the crossbreeds could be wild, especially during calving season. Just imagine 1500 pounds of pissed off solid bone and muscle that is protecting her calf – and your job is to hold that calf down while sticking a tag in it’s ear! Compared to that, most bulls are gentle.
Ahm cows can just be as agressive as bulls. In switzerland they breed a certain type of cow where the females are used to fight each other.
The alpha cows will attack each other because they think that other cow is here to take her herd over. So they ram and shove and even slice each other with their horns.
The oh so touted bull fighting cow breed in spain has very docile, kind bulls. What makes the bulls so agressive is the treatment before they are shoved into the arena.
They get chilli pepper rubbed in their eyes, the nerv rich horn endings are filed so the nerves are raw and irritated, they are injured with spears and are left thirsty and hungry for 1-3 days prior to the fight.
They use the bulls instead of the cows because the bulls are more bulky and impressive looking..and because they want to cut off the balls from the dying animal as trophy…it implies they might have ball related issues themselves.
Stallions I give you that, those can be quite mean because of their *that is my herd dude!* attitude, but with cows you want to look out for the females a bit more than for the bull.
Most people think bulls are more badass because of how they look, but just like with elephants, in a herd it is the females you have to be aware of.
And then you get into fighting cows. They breed them around here. It’s a bit like cockfighting.
And I think the cow is currently hte most dangerous animal in North America.
Eli’s Survival Rules. #25: Do not argue with anything that has more teeth than you do.
Eli’s Survival Rules. #25a: Feel free to substitute bigger or sharper for more in Rule #25.
Eli. Survived… Mostly.
Addendum: Anything which is not confirmed to not has teeth has more teeth than you do.
You could add cows to that as well, they’re very protective of their calves.
ohgodyesthankyou
NOOOOOOOOO i made it to the latest update…
-weeps pitifully-
Herbivores are scary.
The discussions stemming from this comic are amazing. Everyone will be afraid of herbivores from now on.
The moos shall inherit the earth.
I feel like I should point out that bullfighting are starved and tortured into a frenzy before they start attacking everything in sight.
Bulls can be really aggressive in general, however, even if you didn’t do anything. Watch out for ’em. And you can always punch a deer if they’re out of line: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b2d_1320174279&comments=1
While that’s true of bullfighting (once saw part of a “fight” on TV while in Spain, and I couldn’t find anything entertaining or impressive about it, though it did make me a little sick) bull-riding in a rodeo is quite a bit different. For starters, they want them healthy enough to jump around and act general fools of themselves (but if you had some crazy thing climbing on your back and hooting and hollering at you, you’d want them off too) and the rides usually don’t end with the death of the bull (unless it goes completely ape-shit crazy, and looks like it’s going to kill someone and no tranquilizers are handy) They do still (unless this has changed since I last bothered to learn anything about it) tie a rope around the bulls nether region, which adds to his general annoyance/discomfort/rage, and adds to his desire to throw whatever the hell is messing with his back & balls off of him. Also, no guys on horses with spears attacking the bull while the matador takes a break in bull-riding, just a rider, the bull, and clowns when the rider falls/jumps/is bucked off (gah, rodeo clowns…)
Actually, brachiosaurs would probably be a lot safer than most modern herbivores. Jurassic Park really overstates the dinosaur intelligence thing even for the relatively smart ones like small predators, but a sauropod? These things had really staggeringly small brains–as far as we know they didn’t have territorial or defensive instincts, at all. Their only defense was being too big at adulthood for anything to reasonably hunt. The biggest predators could maybe nip at their thighs or underbelly, but the problem with that attack strategy is the part where your thirty-ton kill falls over on top of you.
But no, a human? It’s extremely unlikely it’d even notice you, and it’d move too slowly to step on you by accident unless you were asleep or something. It’s less like how a hippo or a herd of cows would react to a human, and more like how one of those would react to a beetle on the ground.
Which is why it accidentally stepped on them.
And that reminds me; why Spielberg forgot to add that kind of scene in Jurassic Par-…
Oh, right… That movie is a family movie (Yeah right. Severed limb? T-Rex lunges & chew you alive? Brilliant.)
Or how an elephant would react to a mouse- oh wait.
Didn’t the Mythbusters do this? (Elephants are probably better at noticing small things than sauropods anyway, they’re a whole hell of a lot smarter.)
With ‘no defensive instincts,’ how’d they live long enough to hit fifty tons in the first place? And as for speed, one step equals how many human-scale strides? Plus, necks & tails that could probably one-hit-kill a theropod.
Like sea turtles, actually, re: surviving to adulthood. The mother would lay a massive number of eggs and then walk away forgetting about them, and generally a tiny percentage of them lived long enough to grow to a safe size.
As for not getting stepped on by accident, I’m pretty sure you could cover the distance necessary to not be directly under the foot in the time it would take the foot to rise and fall? Like, easily. You might still be under the thing in a general sense but dodging one footfall isn’t a matter of making a hundred meter dash.
I was aware of the sea-turtle strategy prior; you seem to be confusing ‘proportionally small brain’ with ‘reflex-impaired’. Furthermore, the scale difference really ain’t all you crack it up to be: http://scotthartman.deviantart.com/art/How-big-is-your-favorite-dinosaur-366591640
As humans, we’re rather prone to overstating the importance of intelligence. Most reptiles are not intelligent by our standards, but that doesn’t mean they can’t react swiftly and decisively – on the contrary, reptiles can be dangerous adversaries to far cleverer mammals. It just means that their range of possible reactions is limited. Relying on a Brachiosaur to be slow and plodding might be unwise.
but hippos aren’t herbivores they’re omnivores o,o they’ll eat your baby if given the chance as they are very aggressive
They’re herbivores, they can’t digest meat. We went over this already. It’s like how you can eat hair and rocks but that doesn’t make hair and rocks “human food”. When hippos eat meat it’s a sign of stress and/or aggression.
“I had a bowl of nails for breakfast this morning.”
“So?”
“Without any milk.“
Digesting meat is actually WAY easier than digesting plants. Hippos and deer will eat meat if it’s available.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/11/deer_eat_meat_herbivores_and_carnivores_are_not_so_clearly_divided.html
Minor nitpick: A hippo can keep up with Usain Bolt. And if it catches you, it’ll straight bite you in half.
“A bull hippo turned over the dugout canoe from which Tyron was shooting, and bit off his head and shoulders.”
That one panel should’ve had a lot more gore, is what I’m getting at.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_buffalo#Attacks
Known within Africa as one of the “big five”, “The Black Death” or “widowmaker”, the African buffalo is widely regarded as a very dangerous animal, as it gores and kills over 200 people every year. Buffaloes are sometimes reported to kill more people in Africa than any other animal, although the same claim is also made of hippos and crocodiles.
What a creature eats does not mean anything about its disposition.
Herbivore has a silent ‘H’, you want ‘an’ rather than ‘a’ there. /grammar nazi
Do me a favour and just skim the comments next time.
Or consider maybe you aren’t pronouncing all the letters you potentially could be.
Whoa! That’s an awesome tool there Coela! :D
Annnnnd bookmarked.
I think you mean “an silent ‘H'”.
Wow, that moose is badass. Attacking a snowmobile. Has this happened to you personally or to someone you know? I know that they can be pretty aggressive at times.
During mating season male moose will attack trains. They can even derail them.
Don’t you love it when people declare themselves “grammar nazis” and then nitpick spelling or pronounciation, from an entirely parochial and colloquialism-driven understanding of English? It’s like, “grammar” is not a synonym for “pedantic made-up rules about language”, but thanks for playing.
Also, great comic. >>
One of these days, someone’s finally going to get killed by the Karma Chameleon. It’s been long time coming around.
Eh, he come and go. He come and go, oh oh.
Things we can have around Kratos:
The word ‘Herbivore’Seriously, that’s what this (grammar BS) reminds me of.
+2 internets to you. There seem to be a hilarious number of people arguing about a pretty cut-and-dry pronunciation.
Personally, I don’t like pronouncing the letter “H” in any words.
It’s a crap letter.
I hate the letter ‘C’ more & I refer to it as the “thief in the alphabet.” For one thing, it doesn’t even have a phonetic sound of its own, having stolen the sounds of ‘K’ & ‘S’ for itself. It even stole the early position in the alphabet (as the third letter) away from those very same letters that it stole its sounds from.
C is the WORST letter to get in Scattergories.
I love how you drew the bull, moose, and rhino panels in particular. They are so beautiful. (If that’s the right word for MGDMT. :P) The pose, the action, the way it fills the field just right, and the bulls fur is really inspiring. Not only did I think the punchline was hilarious this week, but I also loved how you put it together so much. Thanks for making us free comics so people like me can have a good laugh with them.
I played a druid with a moose animal companion in D&D once. This comic reminds me of that, and the many, many creatures whose dying thoughts must have been “It’s a herbivore, how dangerous can OHGODMYSPINEORMONSTEREQUIVALENT”
Yeesh, so many people bitching about whether its ‘a herbivore’ or ‘an herbivore’. Americans, we get it. You dislike the h. It’s ‘erb with you. Most other places use the h. Put on your big boy shorts and just enjoy the comic, you pedantic S.o.Bs.
Don’t blame ALL Americans! I’m American and I staunchly support the pronunciation of the aitch in front of both herb and herbivore. Whenever anyone disagrees with me I link them to this marvelous explanation by Eddie Izzard. Because there’s a fucking aitch in it.
…Which is in no relation whatsoever to the ‘P’ in Pterodactyl, right?
Pronounce all the letters!
Thanks LOTP, you saved me the effort.
And thanks as always, Coela for the weekly entertainment.
Next time just draw two circles and a diagonal line, we’ll see how many comments argue which circle is in the foreground and thus bigger. Aargh, in fact I need to know right now! Which circle is it, Coelasquid? Which circle!!?
Well this American loves the letter H. Otherwise my name sounds extremely different & odd to me.
When i clicked that link, i think to myself; “Oh my God, Jeff Goldblum looks old.”. Then again, i was a little kid when i watch JP, so…Yeah… (i’ll be 30 in May 16th, 2013, btw.)
As a Canadian all my life, I can personally attest to the fact that you do NOT fuck with a moose.
Unless you’re driving a truck. In which case, I hope you weren’t attached to that truck because the Moose isn’t going down alone.
As a Mainer, I second this. Cows are generally pretty mellow, but a bull moose (especially rutting) will start fights with anything. They will win.
Wut!? Two people in the state of Maine reading the same online page within an hour of each other!? That’s gotta be some sorta record! *hi5’s*
Woah! There’s more than one place with internet?!
Love this. As someone who actually works with big, scary animals, I’ll freely say that I’d rather deal with lions than hippos. Due to mating systems and the need to deter predators, large herbivores (mostly hoofstock) are generally more dangerous than similarly-sized carnivores. Most large carnivores will only attack healthy, adult humans if a) they’re very hungry, or b) feel threatened. Most large herbivores will take “you looked at me funny” as an excuse to attack.
I am, however, disappointed by the lack of cassowary in this comic. The birds are essentially flamboyant murder-machines.
No one would be able to tell the difference between them and Velociraptors.
Except I guess Velociraptors are smaller.
Crowned cranes? They’re nearly as bad, although I guess they aren’t strictly herbivores.
What I find most amusing about JP is the many misconceptions it created about dinosaurs. My personal favorite being velociraptors. The movie portrays them as ~7′ tall murder-saurs. When in all actuality, they were about 7′ long, and only ~2′ tall. Definitely murder capable, but not the screeching death-machine Speilberg presented. My guess is because it’s a pain in the ass to pronounce ‘deinonychus’ ( dy-NON-i-kus ) consistently. Nor, does it have that *ring to it. But that’s what we were all really looking at.
I’m just talking off the top of my head here so I could be 1000% wrong, but I recall hearing that the raptors in the movie more visually/proportionally resembled Utah raptors? Which doesn’t sound very cool I suppose. Either way, it was misnamed for the cool points, it seems.
IIRC the first Utahraptor was discovered after Jurassic Park came out. I seem to remember it being a bit of a laugh among paleontologists about how after all the nitpicking over the movie velociraptors, a real species pretty much matching the movie raptors gets discovered.
You’d have Sam Neill, Richard Attenborough and Bob Peck saying “dyno-NICK-us” while everyone else said “dy-NON-ickus.” A decent chunk of the audience would never figure out that they were all talking about the same critter.
I chalk up all the weirdness with JP’s “dinosaurs” to
the filmmakers relying too heavily on that quack Jack Hornerthem being man-made mutants with frog DNA.They were velociraptors in the book too, so that wasn’t something the movie did. IIRC in the book they were also the size of real velociraptors: more dog-sized than the larger-than-humans movie raptors. I guess they thought that wouldn’t have been intimidating enough on screen (I’d disagree with that, but that’s what I’m guessing their reasoning was).
There was lot of stuff that was changed and removed for the movie, of course (that’s just the way adaptations go). My personal favorite bit ‘o crazy from the book that should have made it into the movie was the dino-keepers trying to chase down the escaped T-Rex with a tranquilizer dart so big it had to be fired with an RPG launcher. Just take a moment to picture that.
Oh man. Cassowaries. I believe you’re missing an ‘an’ there. ;) (Sorry, I wanted to feel like a big important grammar racist too. o.o You’re not missing anything, I made it up)
ANYWAY! My only experience with those BASTARD COATED BASTARDS FILLED WITH BASTARD CREAM is through Far Cry 3. You could say I’m rather an expert on their general disposition.
I haven’t played Far Cry 3 (I know, I should) but by your description I’m guessing it’s a pretty accurate depiction. They’re generally classified as one of the most dangerous zoo animals, right up there with tigers, gorillas, and elephants. That means no direct contact is allowed with them, no going into their enclosure while they’re loose, all training/medical procedures need to be done through a fence, etc. And they look like an emu crossed with a turkey.
There is, apparently, one nice cassowary. She’s used for public presentations in a bird show. When I saw her brought out, quite a few people (myself included) started looking for the closest exit. It was pretty cool to watch her once I stopped fearing for my internal organs.
*reads through comments* Wow. Apparently people who are reading this satirical webcomic about societal gender norms and cultural references for grammar and animal facts are having a bad time… Go figure.
I think it’s to the comic’s credit that it’s meaty enough to allow discussion of its finer details. Coleasquid has crafted a world with credible characters, well, in this case recreated the world of Jurassic Park with enough fidelity that there’s more in it to talk about than gender questions and pop culture references.
Not that the grammar policy discussion isn’t completely peripheral and a fine argument for the “don’t read comments” movement.
…and so, the moral of the story is that a two thousand pound herbivore, however seemingly docile, is mostly two thousand pounds of muscle and solid bone.
Aw man, I stepped in human!
This particular comic stresses the (too often ignored) fact that, in the face of Nature, Man is more likely to be the loser in a physical confrontation. For one thing, Nature has blessed most creatures with evolutionary adaptations for self-defense & obtaining food…Man’s intellect and fine manipulators can create tools to compensate, but is overall weak (physically speaking). In fact, Man is the ONLY species on this planet that has made its continued existence DEPEND ENTIRELY upon making & using tools…We don’t grow the horns/claws/fangs/venoms/toxins/etc that other species do. Some other species can & do *use* tools, but can still survive & obtain food without *requiring* tools. Can a human run down & catch a rabbit bare-handed? Highest probably is that the human would go hungry, but some predatory animals can & do so on a regular basis. But by constructing some form of ranged weapon or a trap changes the odds in favor of a well-fed human.
Actually, a man can run down a lot of animals and catch them bare-handed.
Don’t knock our physical capabilities. We’re a lot bigger than most creatures, which means we are pretty strong. We also have good sight range and excellent vision acuity, high endurance, and the ability to adapt to multiple environments. And that’s all before factoring in our (so far) unparalleled intelligence. By nature, man is a survivor and a predator. If we weren’t good at surviving solely due to our physiology, then we wouldn’t have made it far enough to sharpen a rock. Most animals are wary, if not downright afraid of us.
I think you’re not much considering that early proto-humans were primarily gatherers & scavengers until we started using & making tools…We didn’t really become predators until we had the tools to go on the offensive.
Are you sure? Humans have a lot of biological features that are more indicative of a predator species, such as forward-set eyes, or canines. We’re also capable of some fairly impressive feats where endurance or raw speed is concerned: notably, we can outrun a horse over a short distance, or chase a deer until its exhausted. Of course, such feats in regards to predation rely more on group work than individual ability.
Perhaps one of our genetic ancestors were once herbivores or omnivores, but humans and some of their immediate predecessors are most definitely predators by nature, and not simply through tool usage.
We’re indeed persistence hunters by design, but even modern-day persistence hunters have several other food-gathering methods (it’s not the most… efficient… hunting method, and works best when the target animal’s weakened already), and we’re still much squishier than most of the other predators and many herbivores on this green Earth. We basically made it this far because we could tell each other where the easiest to grab food is. :v
Also, we’re still omnivores (evidence: our teeth and intestines). We’re just omnivores that hunt a lot, like bears or chickens (chickens are basically modern Velociraptors and will gleefully eat anything that can fit in their crop, including lizards, snakes, and each other).
And again, our adaptability. Few creatures can adapt to the same range of environmental conditions as we can. I might have overstated the herbivore/omnivore part a bit.
We don’t need our tools as much a we need each other, really.
I’m very disappointed it didn’t cast Ultima. :(
I love you for that reference. Only people who have really played that game will get it.
I hate that dinosaur. I know you should just cast a quick mute on it (Or silence. Can’t remember which), but I built my party to be a hard-hitting, spell-slinging, daul-casting, Octa-hitting group of pure awesome, and Mute is a long way from Ultima, Particularly when it hits first. And the darn dinosaur is just so hard to find!
Herbivore… right. Diablos says hello. :/
I see you’ve ‘spared no expense’ in getting your point across, oh ho ho!
Hullo, long time reader, first time commenter (commentor? commentator? common tater?) Anyways, always have liked the comic and how it looks. I assume, quite possibly erroneously , that Coelasquid uses a computer program for the art. Just curious what she uses. If this has already been asked and answered, if anyone could point me to the comment section it is in, it would be much appreciated.
I do layout in Photoshop, draw and ink in Manga studio, and colour in Photoshop.
I was looking up manga studio saw that it had color as well. I was just curious, what makes you choose to color in photoshop over Manga Studio?
because Manga Studio is shitty at colours and I have photoshop plugins that reduce the whole process to like 20 minutes.
Well Hippos are not 100% herbivore. they are also omivore that prefers plants over meat. but piss them off. then you and anything that stands in their way will be on their menu. “mm.. that human.. tastes like.. crocodile.”
Oh my god I wish you people would read the other comments sometimes.
I feel like your comment is discriminating against those of us who can’t read…
:-D
Sorry if this is a double post by the way… got an error the first time. Probably the internets way of telling me to go back to listening to the pictures in my audio book.
Are we really talking about herbivores more than Jeff Goldblum here
That theory was stupid…he deserved to die!
In defense of the guy saying “They won’t hurt us”, we are probably so tiny we don’t register as a plausible threat. Sure, the hippos, elephants, moose, and rhinos will attack humans who get too close, but will they do the same to ants or mice? I highly doubt it.
Because you know it’s not like there’s any kind of historical stereotypes or documented evidence of elephants caring about mice.
Of course, it really would be nice if people would at least skim the comments before they bring up one of the same three talking points that I’ve been listening to people parrot over and over again for weeks on end. It’s pretty easy to skim for my comments, I’m the only person with a yellow name.
These comments seem to be in dire need of a subject change, so I’ll introduce one! Coelasquid, I’ve wondered for a while now. . . what brand of cigars does the Commander smoke? I’ve always loved hand-rolled smokes, and recently I’ve started making enough money that I can finally smoke them again, so I’m curious as to his taste. Maybe it matches mine!
I know this is a reference to Jurassic Park, but the demonic part of my brain has command me to point out that it could be interpreted as the Commander and his two kids on a vacation through time with a nasty ending.
Wait, you’ve met Jeff Goldblum?
…This is ironic, as yesterday I bought a DVD of this bird movie with him, Leonard Nimoy, and Samuel L. Jackson, and this morning was talking about him with a friend. I am only just now reading this comic strip, since I decided to catch up on it after not being able to read it for a few months.
…More importantly, I’m very jealous.
Don’t you ever get tired of always being wrong?
lolwut.
Could it be that his comment’s aimed at the characters in the strip, rather than its author?