The African lion (Panthera leo) is a big, scary critter. A tom can weigh close to 500 pounds. They have claws like meathooks, crushing jaws full of nasty, sharp teeth, and are powerful, broad-chested beasts. African professional hunter Peter Hathaway Capstick, who hunted in Africa for decades and wrote several books on the subject, once commented that lions were only the African animal that really scared him, citing their size, speed, and willingness to kill. Lions should be on everyone's "Don't mess with" list.

But a recent study in South Africa's Greater Kruger National Park determined that there was one creature that African herbivores fear more than lions: Humans.

"Lions are the biggest group-hunting land predator on the planet, and thus ought to be the scariest," conservation biologist Michael Clinchy from Western University in Canada said in 2023.

But in over 10,000 recordings of wildlife on the African savannah, 95 percent of the species observed responded with far more terror to the sound of an entirely different beast. This animal isn't even technically an apex predator. It's us: humans.

We're the monsters lurking under other mammals' beds.

"The fear of humans is ingrained and pervasive," said Clinchy. "There's this idea that the animals are going to habituate to humans if they're not hunted. But we've shown that this isn't the case."

Here in North America, though, many people might take exception to that characterization, as many animals ranging from white-tailed deer to black bears are doing very well around humans, and smaller, more adaptable critters like foxes, coyotes, and raccoons seem to be very fond of human towns and even cities.

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Africa, granted, is a different place, and the prevailing attitudes towards wildlife are different; many big critters are viewed by the population as either food or a nuisance, which doubtless affects the behavior of the local wildlife.

Almost all 19 of the mammal species observed in experiments were twice as likely to abandon the waterholes when hearing humans talking compared to lions or even hunting sounds. The mammals include rhinos, elephants, giraffes, leopards, hyenas, zebras and warthogs, some of which can pose dangers in their own right.

While these findings may be surprising to some, it's important to note that for wildlife biologists, who are tasked with conserving game (and other) species, one of the key things to know is what other creatures affect the wildlife you're concerned with, and how. And the impressive capabilities of lions aside, it's not terribly surprising that humans are cause for more concern than lions to African animals. After all, it's likely humans contributed to the extinction of animals like mammoths, and back then we were using sharp rocks and pointed sticks, not high-powered rifles. Also, in many parts of Africa, poaching is a huge problem, which just makes matters worse.

Even so, it's hard not to muster up just a little hubris over all this: African critters as big as rhinos are more scared of us than they are of lions.

In the course of researching this piece, I stumbled across this clip from a 1997 documentary, showing just how dangerous a human can be, even when faced with the King of Beasts.