Humans fist fight all of the time and, unfortunately, hit each other all of the time.
According to some research done at the University of Utah, humans seem to be optimized specifically for delivering hard punches while minimizing the likelihood of injury to the puncher.
The researchers did some observations on how both gorillas and chimpanzees strike with their hands, and then had humans replicate the various methods of strikes. While it’s not a perfect comparison, it does give an idea for how different postures shake out when striking objects.
It turns out that chimps and gorillas, while unbelievably strong, lose a significant amount of punching force due to the fact that their thumbs don’t effectively buttress their fists the way human thumbs can. The key is that humans can make a very tight, closed fist where the fingers are reinforced by the thumb’s positioning. Chimps and gorillas can’t make tight fists, but instead either make a partial fist with the thumb inline with the forearm, or just curl their their hand into a C shape.
tl;dr, humans are much better at bare-knuckle boxing than chimps and gorillas are, when overall strength is accounted for.
I always assumed that in whatever fiction I was reading the zombifying virus made the host cells secrete some kind of preservative like formaldehyde and this explained the slow decay and absence of worms and bugs. Some corpses for more than 10 years with just a little embalming…
I can think of one dead-easy solution: Zombie corrals. Arrange a pre-fab concrete-wall building. Add several entrances that are one-way. Attractants (light, noise) clearly visible from outside of the entrances.
Zombies lurch in, but they don’t lurch out. Then, depending on type of zombie, flood the corral with the appropriate agent.
If biological/viral. just flood the corral with Carbon Monoxide: if mystic/undead, let loose flamethrowers, or even an overhead gasolene/kerosene sprinkler system, and a igniter in the walls, and it’s Zombie Flambe. . . .
IF you don’t have time to build a pre-fab,lure them to a nearby quarry pit, and then deal with them. . .
I’ve been watching zombie movies for 30 years and I never once thought about them as being walking carrion, a veritable buffet on legs with free delivery. I love revelations like these and now I desperately want to see a movie with a zombie walking around swarming with ants, or one with a vulture sitting on its shoulder casually taking bites as it walks.
Think of a movie which combined some of the zombie classics with The Birds. Can’t do much better than that! Subsequently, hosts of zombies are overwhelmed by maggots; and then, in the end, the Blob comes for them all.
Now I’m imagining War of the Worlds and Plan Nine from Outer Space, too! The Martians, as a prelude to their own invasion, raise the dead, the dead conquer the Earth and, wreck our human civilization, but ultimately microorganisms, absent on Mars, wreck the dead and the Martian invaders…
By the way, it would be nice if the edit functions had visible icons instead of the F0/33 etc. placeholders.
By the time that there are enough zombies that they were regularly encountering and getting dismembered by wildlife, at least 30% of the human race would be dead. Probably more like 70%. We can accept all the author’s premises about zombies versus wildlife. They are still a major threat to humanity.
As zombies became the new normal, would not the predators correspondingly adapt their attacking methods? Much of their hunting technique is not genetic, but acquired as they mature. Successful adult predators would pass on their techniques to their offspring. Apex predators usually are often highly intelligent/adaptive.
