THE VIDEO SHELF · persistence hunting
The Intense 8 Hour Hunt | Attenborough Life of Mammals | BBC Earth
A clip from Attenborough's Life of Mammals following a San tribesman in the Kalahari on an eight-hour persistence hunt, running down a kudu through harsh heat. It shows tracking, endurance running and the hunter's reaction after the kill.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN returns to it as the canonical footage of persistence hunting in threads about human endurance running and evolution.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- BBC Earth
- Topic
- persistence hunting
- Format
- documentary
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 6
- HN mentions in dataset
- 20
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2010–2024
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
[VIDEO] This is a video of human hunters (Koi San, an African ethnic group that has been pushed to extinction over the last millennia by the Bantu tribes) chasing down a kudu antelope. Antelope are great runners, but they can't cool themselves as efficiently as …
JPKab on Hacker News · 2012-08
In The humans who outrun horsesThe San Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert still do this today. This BBC clip on persistence hunting (narrated by David Attenborough!) is worth a watch; their endurance is absolutely incredible: [VIDEO]
liuhenry on Hacker News · 2011-02
In Belgian man completes 365 marathons in 365 consecutive daysCheck this remarkable video on persistence hunting in the kalahari - a hunter literally chases a buck until it's completely exhausted. [VIDEO]
Synaesthesia on Hacker News · 2013-09
In Why humans can outrun horses but can’t jump higher than cats.
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.