Animals are more scared of humans than lions, study shows
Which do you think is scarier: humans talking or lions roaring?
If only wild animals knew that humans were not going to harm them. Well, in most circumstances that tends to be the case.
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But that's a conversation for another day.
If you have not heard the roar of a lion in real life, you have probably heard it somewhere, possibly at the start of a movie.
When you hear that powerful sound it's hard not to imagine being a little scared of those beautiful but wild beasts.
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However, we might be the only ones who think a lion is even remotely scary.
A recent study, conducted in the South African savanna, has revealed that there is a greater predator that animals tend to fear.
The researchers of the study set out to determine whether or not wild animals in the Kruger National Park experienced different levels of fear when hearing different sounds.
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Through speakers hidden at waterholes throughout the park, the scientists played recordings of humans talking in various different local languages.
They also did this with recordings of lions snarling and growling and the human voices resulted in 95% of the animals being extremely frightened and running away.
According to this study, the findings suggest that the animals, such as warthogs, antelope, leopards, giraffes, and elephants, have come to understand that human voices lead to hurt or death, due to being associated with hunting and gun use.
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This fear is not only present in African animals, but it has become a worldwide phenomenon that animals are becoming more fearful of the human predator.
Funnily enough, some elephants were even ready to confront the lions when they heard the fake big cat sounds.
This new information could help to reduce poaching so for now, being scary is a win.
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Main image courtesy of iStock/3dan3