Let the age-old debate be put to bed: bear vs monkey!
October 5, 2006 6:39 PM

Ok, so bird flu or SARS or whatever wipes out the human population (like gone) leaving practically the entire rest of the ecosystem intact. Bears and primates battle for dominion over dry land. Who wins?

Ok, here are the rules:
1) No peaceful resolution; coexistence and/or isolationism be damned! The bears and the primates want it all and they want it now.

2) No write-in candidates. The dolphins are not taking to the streets. The armadillos do not take charge in the 11th hour for the upset.

3) No other animals as key victors, however they may enter into combat (strategically or otherwise). The monkeys can form an alliance with the lemurs, but only insomuch as the US formed an alliance with Romania to help fight the war in Iraq.

4) We left all of our toys behind. Cars, grocery stores, indoor plumbing, strip clubs. And a lot of human carcasses.

All right, so who's your money on?
posted by es_de_bah to Science & Nature (4 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: no hypothetical filter.

Primates. Bears seem way too laid-back (unless attacked). Monkeys are hyper. (In case it's not written on my forehead, I'm not an animal expert.)

(Realistically, I'd have to go with "coexistence," but since it's disallowed, I think the primates would win out.)

I wish more people asked questions like yours.
posted by fogster at 6:48 PM on October 5, 2006


Bears! GRRRR!
posted by oxford blue at 7:02 PM on October 5, 2006


Who wins?

You can pollute, you can nuke, but Chatfilter will always be with us.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:05 PM on October 5, 2006


Allow me to expand on that notion;

Bears are strong, and angry, and big in fairly great numbers. However most monkeys are little punks, that while being better in most other regards, would probably lose in a mano a mano combat. I think the small numbers of big powerful primates would eventually be overpowered.

Don't forget--BEARS CAN CLIMB TREES AND KNOW WHERE AND HOW TO STEAL PICK-A-NIC BASKETS!

Ahem.

Surely some student has done a dissertation on just this.
posted by oxford blue at 7:06 PM on October 5, 2006


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