God has decided to drop many of his finest megafauna from the Late Cretaceous onward onto an Earth-like planet. As a fun side project, he also places a population of Homo Sapiens with all the knowledge necessary to make fire and primitive tools. Unfortunately, they are in the hunting ground of the fearsome T-Rex. Naturally, the indomitable human spirit causes our cavemen to set out to exterminate any rex that dares threaten them. How would humans hunt a T-Rex with only fire, stone or wooden tools, and whatever they can make from the remains of other animals? I am fully aware that early humans hunted mammoths, but I assume the natural instinct of a predator would be to fight back rather than flee into a trap, even if the small monkeys have small suns on sticks. Obviously they would make some kind of trap and lure it in with meat, but then the next question is: Can the cavemen drive the t-rex to extinction? Taking into account the high reproductive rate of egg layers as compared to large mammals, as well as the significantly higher danger in hunting an animal that doesn't run when confronted.
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2$\begingroup$ Pretty sure cavemen were hunting predators that fought back when needed. Might need more context/research. $\endgroup$– NyakouaiCommented Dec 3 at 4:07
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$\begingroup$ those predators were on a vastly different scale to a t-rex, which is about the size of an elephant $\endgroup$– IMP9024Commented Dec 3 at 4:08
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1$\begingroup$ We try not to vote to close the quesitons of new users. Therefore, for future reference, try to avoid asking story-based questions. Whether or not the cavemen are successful is up to you, the author. It's not a rigid fact of history and you're asking on a service that expects you to pick a best answer. Are you going to pick the answer that doesn't suit your story, even if it has greater evidence? Simply put, make your choice ("my cavemen will hunt the T-rex to extinction, what tactic would work for a creature that size?") and let us rationalize it. That's our sweet spot. $\endgroup$– JBHCommented Dec 3 at 5:42
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$\begingroup$ thank you for the clarification, if i want to make a choice and ask for a rationalisation, should i edit the existing question or ask a new question? $\endgroup$– IMP9024Commented Dec 4 at 2:41
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$\begingroup$ Ask a new question. It's not good manners to change your question in a way that invalidates existing answers. $\endgroup$– JBHCommented Dec 7 at 6:34
4 Answers
Your T-Rex are going to be matter for fables very soon.
Taking into account the high reproductive rate of egg layers as compared to large mammals
You are grossly overestimating the threat of a T-rex's egg laying.
As you can read in this excellent answer:
Notice that T. Rex takes about 10 years to grow to the size of grizzly bear; and won't reach full size until it is more like 20. A lion, on the other hand, rarely even lives that long in the wild. Wikipedia gives the average age of a male at 10-14 years. Meanwhile a cub hits sexual maturity in 2-3 years.
So there is the problem. A young tyrannosaur would have to survive for 5 years at least avoiding predators. Just looking at Costa Rica, a baby tyrannosaur would be avoiding otters, racoons, weasels, foxes, grison, tayra, skunks; a predator for every habitat. He wouldn't be safe in the trees, on the ground, or in the water. And then if this tyrannosaur survived to 10kg, he is still potential food for a cougar or jaguar.
Warm blooded creatures are much more active than cold blooded. In the modern world, T. Rex isn't keeping away from lizards and snakes and proto-mammals; it is avoiding high metabolism predators that have to eat half their body weight each day. The whole paradigm of 'have a lot of eggs and hope for the best' is literally extinct in today's world for large animals. If you want a small baby to survive to a big animal, you need to take care of your offspring, and you need to make it grow faster. You need to feed it milk, which means that you need to be a mammal. Exceptions in modern ecosystems are strictly limited.
All those eggs laying around and the hatchlings who managed to emerge from them are going to supply your cavemen with a much needed protein intake, which they will use to hunt down the adults.
Mammoth, saber-tooth tigers, cave bears and dancing company were no treat to cavemen. Neither will be a scary looking lizard.
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1$\begingroup$ +1 for the research on egg-laying and mentionning the problem that, on top of humanity, there is already all the rest of the food chain to compete with and survive. $\endgroup$– NyakouaiCommented Dec 3 at 5:27
Bottom line, T-Rex is going extinct
First of all, can humans drive the T-Rex to extinction by hunting them? I think you are vastly overestimating the problem a T-Rex would pose. It is hard to say if T-Rex hunted and lived in packs, or if they were solitary. Researchers disagree. You equate the T-Rex size to elephants; elephants do fight back predators when cornered, and they live in herd. Cavemen still managed to hunt them. In nature, smaller predators already manage to kill larger preys. Our ancestors possess two main advantages over wild animals;
- Brain. Making tools, making traps, planning an ambush, those are things that set us apart and allowed us to survive and to thrive.
- Stamina. We are pursuit predators. The prey we couldn't outright kill, we just pushed to complete exhaustion to make the slaughter easier. Most animals will flee encounters unless cornered or standing to benefit directly from it, as the energy expenditure (and potential for injuries) of a fight is a detriment that needs to be recouped later.
Yes, in every engagement, humans might and will die. But overall, history suggest that humans have the advantage.
You said that egg-layers reproduce faster than large mammals. I don't know how accurate that is. The unchanging factor is that large organisms need more food to grow. T-Rex will need a large pool of prey and will compete for food, which restrain the population growth.
But let's admit they can't coordinate enough to cripple enough the T-Rex population to drive them to extinction directly. Can they drive them to extinction indirectly? Answer is also yes, once again according to history. One of the theories as to why smilodons aren't around anymore is that they competed for food with the humans - and in the end, we just starved them out. T-Rex, as a larger species, will have a harsher time adapting to the prey pool fluctuations.
But what if we don't drive them to extinction fast enough? Then humanity will outlast them. Maybe when we learn agriculture and farming, and learn to defend ourselves by creating settlements and wall. Maybe when we learn to forge and use metals. Maybe it will take as long as the industrial revolution and the colonization to finally finish the remaining pockets of T-Rex in the less populated areas. Time allows for progress, and as such, time has so far favored humanity. Large felines could prey on humans - now they are just a fraction of human population. Wolves could prey on humans - now they are just a fraction of human population. Crocodiles could prey on humans - the only reason we didn't dwindle those scaly, egg-laying predators to next to nothing is that we don't compete (too much) for the same food sources. Larger predators did not emerge while humanity was here because there is simply no room for them, and we are (currently) taking more space in the food chain than any other species.
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$\begingroup$ yes, elephants fight back when cornered. However, the early humans would leave an escape route so that the mammoth would run into swampy terrain and sink, leaving it helpless. This would not work on a predator that is accustomed to taking on threats such as other large predators. $\endgroup$– IMP9024Commented Dec 3 at 5:20
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$\begingroup$ You mentionned "megafauna" in your question. The extent and diversity is not mentionned, and I can not infer it. I was under the impression you were using the T-Rex as your apex predator; I struggle to see what you are going to put against it that is going to be so radical that it's a definitive predator of the T-Rex. Elephants are used to fight other predators that are (physically) nastier than humans. They still prefer to flee. 1/2 $\endgroup$– NyakouaiCommented Dec 3 at 5:24
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$\begingroup$ 2/2 T-Rex most likely did not fight other T-Rex unless they had a good reason to. Good reason being access to ressources (food or mating). Apes coming to shoo you awake from your nap is not a good reason to risk injuries. Like every other predators in history, they most likely move. And move again. And move again. Ultimately, tired, they fight and they die. That's how we prevailed. That's the way T-Rex is going. OR you forgot to mention the place is absolutely crawling with giant man eating lizards (that are, for some reasons not starving). Then humans die, and there isn't much of a story. $\endgroup$– NyakouaiCommented Dec 3 at 5:26
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$\begingroup$ Point I'm trying to make is; there isn't room for us and any other super predators. Either A) T-Rex (and in my opinion, it takes T-Rex plus a LOT of megafauna) overcome humans and we suffer an early extinction. Or B) we outlast and starve them, like we did any other species we encountered. $\endgroup$– NyakouaiCommented Dec 3 at 5:29
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$\begingroup$ There is evidence that T-rexes fought each other, even if it was only for resources or territory, we have t-rex skeletons that have t-rex bite marks on them. Therefore, an adult rex would probably have experience fighting other t-rex. $\endgroup$– IMP9024Commented Dec 4 at 1:53
Yeah, it would be dangerous, exciting,......... and easy.
Predatory mammals can be fooled quite easily. Dinosaurs are a lot stupider. You don't need to confront them from spear distance. Just fool them into a pre-chosen killing ground, like a cliff or pit.
Slings would be good for this. When herding animals with slings you sling near them on the opposite side from where you want them to run. They'll shy away from the sound.
With predators they'll go towards the sound, they're hard wired for it. You don't get much more stone age than a sling, it's literally a stone.
Or do what we do with Komodo dragons. Tie a goat up in the middle of your killing field and wait for your target to show up. Probably even a pungent dead goat carcass would do it. Cave people would soon figure out what works best.
All those eggs are just so many stone age omelettes.
T-Rex is Doomed Without Us Having to Hunt it at All
Humans are WILDLY good at driving large prey animals to extinction. As a consequence, we are ALSO wildly good at driving large predators to extinction. Pat Shipman's The Invaders lays out the case pretty extensively.
If stone-tool-using humans were dumped on a planet where none of the megafauna evolved with us, all the prey megafauna is going extinct. Which means all the PREDATOR megafauna is ALSO going extinct, because they'd have nothing to eat. On top of that (again The Invaders discusses this quite a lot) when a new predator enters an ecosystem it preferentially attacks direct competitors. For example, wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park decimated the coyote population. When humans do it, we either drive predators to extinction (cave bears, cave lions, Neanderthals, etc) co-opt them (wolves, whose wild numbers drastically reduced) or force them into some other ecological niche (wolves, which stopped primarily hunting game humans hunted, and some species of bear, which went very vegetarian). Cavemen might not be able to hunt an adult T-rex, but the nests and juveniles are going to be preferentially targeted. On top of those losses, the adults are going to suffer from lack of prey animals. Eventually the combination is going to do them in.
Even assuming humans CAN'T successfully hunt T-Rex to extinction (A premise I doubt but as we haven't hunted to extinction large predatory reptiles or birds which were capable of hunting US I am willing to let it stand) T-Rex is still hosed because we'd eat everything IT eats, leaving it to starve.
