• Maggoty@lemmy.world
    1162·
    9 months ago

    Silverback. Yeah mambas should be scared and stay away, but one crazy one and you can’t hide anywhere. With the gorilla I just need to stay somewhere closed off, like on top of an elevator car. But also silverbacks understand conciliatory gestures. If you’re submissive they won’t attack you. Literally the opposite of a black bear encounter. Make yourself small, look away, and slowly move away.

      • phorq@lemmy.mlEspañol
        42·
        9 months ago

        Ah, the Bugs Bunny approach… worst case scenario you get flattened and walk away with funny sound effects.

    • whereBeWaldo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      4·
      9 months ago

      If the both animals are angry I feel like you can just loot some food and drinks then lock yourself into a freezer or something (ofc you turn it off first).

      I dont know how realistic this is but I kinda expect a gorilla to be able to smash the freezer door but no way a snake is getting in or 5 for that matter

      • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@reddthat.com
        2·
        9 months ago

        loot some food and drinks then lock yourself into a freezer or something

        If its just 24 hours, just get some powerbanks for your phone and something to collect any pee/poo you have to release. Food/water just means more waste to deal with.

      • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        I live in the frozen wasteland. If he’s to the REI for some warm gear. Turn off the heat and let the snakes go lethargic.

        Then return the clothes the next day.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
    1041·
    9 months ago

    All the people who are not choosing to chill with a usually calm intelligent mammal because “snakes will get out of your way” apparently don’t know shit about black mambas:

    Skittish and often unpredictable, the black mamba is agile and can move quickly. In the wild, black mambas seldom tolerate humans approaching more closely than about 40 metres (130 ft)

    When confronted, it is likely to engage in a threat display

    During the threat display, any sudden movement by the intruder may provoke the snake into performing a series of rapid strikes, leading to severe envenomation

    Give me a big strong dude intelligent enough to leave you alone after you’re demonstrated that you’re not a threat any day!

    • Iceman@lemmy.world
      131·
      9 months ago

      From the same Wikipedia article:

      The black mamba’s reputation for being ready to attack is exaggerated; it is usually provoked by perceived threats such as the blocking of its movements and ability to retreat.

      Despite its reputation as a formidable and highly aggressive species, the black mamba attacks humans only if it is threatened or cornered.

    • Noodle07@lemmy.world
      11·
      9 months ago

      Yup, I’d feel much safer with a gorilla. But I’m stupid enough to try to befriend him with fruits lol

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
        6·
        9 months ago

        As long as you’re careful about displaying submissive body language and not getting too close, the worst thing that could happen is probably that he gets to snack on fruit and ignores you 🤷

        Probably have to REALLY know what you’re doing though lol

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
          5·
          9 months ago

          Nah, that’s lawyers you’re thinking of. Gorillas are the ones who howl at the moon and have been observed by Warren Zevon casually strolling around all over London.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
        6·
        9 months ago

        Try finding a door that can withstand a gorilla tho

        The gorilla won’t even care that you’re there as long as you don’t get too close and act too aggressively. It’s definitely not going to hunt you down and break down the door to get to you unless its family is in there too or something like that.

        Also, as I pointed out to the other one, being locked in a bathroom for 24 hours is its own kind of hell for some of us.

        Besides, one of the snakes might be hiding in that bathroom and you won’t know until it’s too late. Silverback gorillas, on the other hand, are not known for stealth.

  • JonEFive@midwest.social
    751·
    9 months ago

    Gorilla. No doubt in my mind. It’s a hell of a lot easier to keep track of where one gorilla is compared to 5 black snakes.

    One gorilla will probably ignore me as long as I keep my distance. Keeping distance and even putting a wall or 3 between you and the gorilla is trivial in a place as large as a mall.

    On the other hand, snakes might mostly ignore me, but since I don’t know where the fuckers are, it’s a lot easier to accidentally startle or threaten one.

    My new best friend friend Coco isn’t coming through pipes, air ducts, holes in walls, etc. Big strong boi isn’t hiding in the corner of a closet waiting to bite me as I reach in to grab a snack.

    I’d go to the food court, put out a cornucopia of food, make sure the gorilla sees me leave it there for them, bow respectfully and slink away, then spend the rest of the 24 hours clear on the opposite side of the mall.

    This all assumes that the gorilla isn’t enraged for any particular reason or starving. But even if so, I think gorilla is the safer answer, just the evasion technique changes.

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
      221·
      9 months ago

      I don’t think a gorilla would be chill while stuck in a mall

      Are the snakes hungry? You can be on an open space, or a strtegically closed one to keep away from the snakes.

  • Goblin_Mode@ttrpg.network
    651·
    9 months ago

    I mean if we’re gonna take this goofy post at face value and get addmitedly WAY too into the breakdown…

    The context of if they are agitated or otherwise hostile for some external reason is actually kinda critically important here lol.

    In a situation where they are just passively existing and you need to choose which species to just co-habitate with I’m choosing the monkey FOR SURE.

    • Any snake is going to be hard to spot, an ambush predator, specifically one (or 5!) as deadly and teritorial as a black mamba, is going to be nigh impossible to keep track of, sneaking around and catching prey off-guard is literally their whole thing. On top of that, while gorilla’s vary greatly in personality (just like humans) odds are decent that if you just leave them alone they will leave you alone.

    • Hell, maybe if you manage to find some fruit you might even be able to AT A GREAT DISTANCE establish some sort of basic report with the Silverback. Like, don’t pet the guy, but if they know you don’t have hostile intentions and occasionally provide snacks they probably will keep their “territory” reasonably small, letting you scavenge more areas.

    But if the script is flipped and we are in a full blown survival setting? Where for one reason or another the animal(s) has our number from the moment we step foot in the mall? You are fucking insane if you choose the Silverback Gorilla.

    • Those things are ludicrously fast, Huge, have great senses, and will literally rip you in half. You would be dead within minutes of entering the mall no matter how far away that gorilla starts from you.

    • Snakes you can at the very least survive longer, if not outright just escape them and hide somewhere relatively hermeticly sealed. Maybe find a cabinet you can squeeze into and close the doors to let oxygen in but too small for snakes, maybe find a tall shelf or rafter and collapse the furniture used to climb on your way up to prevent the snakes climbing it as well.

    • A Silverback gorilla however is not only far faster both climbing and on land, but has enormous fucking gorilla arms to rip away any sort of door or cover you try to use to hide.

    If we’re being generous and assuming this is taking place in the largest mall in the USA, The Mall of America, and the gorilla starts on the opposite side of the mall from where you enter. It would need to clear roughly 1 mile (assuming the 1 mile-ish exterior wall of the mall is circular (it’s not but just humor me), in order to get to you. A silverback gorilla’s top land speed is roughly 25mph, that means 2200 feet per minute, that means you have just over 2 minutes to get into a meat freezer or something equally tough before it catches you. So you not only need to know where one is, but it needs to be close enough to get to in such a short time. Hell no, I’m taking the snakes.

    Anyway thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
      242·
      9 months ago

      Dude.

      Snakes do not care for you. They will try to get away from you.

      So as long as you don’t sit on one, you’re bueno.

      Gorillas are so alike us and have social behaviour that it would find you in the mall (as it would definitely smell you at some point) and there’s really nothing you could do to appease it enough.

      Looking a silverback in the eyes can be a death sentence, which you won’t be able to run away from.

      You can get away from snakes with a brisk walk, and they would never challenge you unless cornered.

      Also, you can fight a snake with a stick, whereas even if this mall was American and you had a handgun, you’d have a tough time taking down the gorilla before it ripped you to shreds.

      There’s no scenario in which it’d be smarter to pick the gorilla. Not even one where it’s from a zoo.

      • Goblin_Mode@ttrpg.network
        11·
        9 months ago

        You can get away from snakes with a brisk walk, and they would never challenge you unless cornered … Also, you can fight a snake with a stick …

        Black mambas move at like 15mph (much faster than you or I) and are absolutely capable of killing a fully grown human if they feel threatened. Fighting them off with a stick is a great way to get a one way ticket to ground town lol.

        My point was that the risk of accidentally meandering into one’s nest is enormous. I guess the answer is just stay in large open areas, but I was thinking more like a post apocalyptic “look for food and survive” kinda angle.

        But yeah, I 100% agree that the Silverback is the more dangerous option here by a huge margin. I just think given a situation where you could avoid it long enough to find a hiding place it can’t get into (like a restaurants freezer). I’d rather the hulking gorilla that I can hide from over the deadly snake that might have made it’s home in my rudimentary shelter.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
          2·
          9 months ago

          Oh, well, I am surprised how fast they are.

          They would run away from you.

          Black Mambas are extremely shy and will do everything they can to avoid people.

          And if I had to choose to try and outrun a black mamba or a gorilla, I know which I’d try.

          My point was that the risk of accidentally meandering into one’s nest is enormous. I guess the answer is just stay in large open areas, but I was thinking more like a post apocalyptic “look for food and survive” kinda angle.

          I get it, but that’s exactly my point. Unless you honestly sit on the nest, you’re fine. And even then, probably, because you’ll sound like a giant stomping when you near the nest.

          Snakes don’t chase humans. Silverbacks might do it just for fun.

          I’d rather the hulking gorilla that I can hide from over the deadly snake that might have made it’s home in my rudimentary shelter.

          You really couldn’t hide from a silverback if he wanted to find you. And he might. Snakes would never chase you or hunt you or be remotely interested in you, unless you corner them. On top of that, it’s quite a lot easier to make a snakeproof area somewhere than it is to block a gorilla from doing literally anything it choooses to.

          But thanks yeah, I was not aware of how fast black Mambas are. The video is interesting though.

          Snake expert rates 9 attacks in movies | How real is it

  • theodewere@kbin.social
    50·
    9 months ago

    man i’d rather hang out with a gorilla at the mall than most people, wtf kind of question is that

  • Granite@kbin.social
    342·
    9 months ago

    I’m taking the snakes 100%. Snakes don’t want to bite you, so stay in open spaces and you’re all good.

  • Baku@aussie.zoneEnglish
    25·
    9 months ago

    My first reaction was mamba, and I actually thought that I was going to be in the majority. I don’t know much of black mambas, but most of the snakes I’ve encountered first hand tend to not want to be anywhere near you and will almost always try to avoid biting you. But on further research it seems they are rather territorial. Even so, I do think they’d be more likely to want to hide than stay in open spaces. But that’s a double edged sword, since they’ll probably end up in the most random nooks and crannies then bite your head off (or at least try) if you stumble upon them.

    Realistically though, regardless of which one I choose, I’m going to try and stay as far away as possible. If it’s snakes, I’ll probably climb onto a table or something, maybe up on top of some shelves in a grocery store. If it’s a gorilla, I’d probably try to hide somewhere hard to access. On top of a lift or in a walk in fridge as others have suggested seem like good bets. I don’t really trust either to not try and kill me given the right circumstances

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
      5·
      9 months ago

      Idk, I can definitely find something in the mall that can help me trap/ kill a couple snakes. I can’t say the same thing about a silverback.

      Plus, the snakes are just as likely to attack each other than anything, with apes you always gotta worry about them teaming up.

      • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
        6·
        9 months ago

        I was gonna say. The gorilla is a 800lb. problem that requires stealth, strength, and fast thinking to deal with. You’d need a smarter plan than “lure him into Banana Republic and close the security gate with him inside.” But you will need a plan.

        Also, accidentally make eye contact or show your teeth to that ape and you’re dead; like your shoes came off, dead. Can’t say the same for the snakes.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
          6·
          9 months ago

          lure him into Banana Republic

          “I wish to lodge a formal complaint about the ludicrously misleading naming of this establishment.”

          Signed Buford Francis Gorilla

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
    23·
    9 months ago

    Sure, lots of big animals are gentle. However when something the size of a car decides to gore you or rip your spine in half, there’s nothing you can do about it

      • rwhitisissle@lemmy.world
        61·
        9 months ago

        A snake can’t sprint at you at 25 miles an hour and then rip you in half like a phone book as soon as it sees you. Nor would it. A panicked gorilla placed in a strange location like a mall will potentially kill anything in sight.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        9 months ago

        Just don’t go into corners, it’s 24 hours and only 5 snakes. Go to the Asian imports and get a mall ninja sword if it makes you feel more comfortable. The snakes are going to fuck off anywhere small where they feel protected… just don’t go adventuring and you won’t have any snek issues.

        Now if it’s 50 mambas that definitely changes the calculus.

    • RGB3x3@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      9 months ago

      There’s always a gorilla in the banana stand.

      Is that how that saying goes?

    • phx@lemmy.ca
      6·
      9 months ago

      Plot twist, neither would be mad at you. They are actually very horny in this situation.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
        2·
        9 months ago

        On the one hand, snakes have no external genitals, but on the other hand, that doesn’t mean they can’t violently enter you… Also, they’re cold blooded in more ways than one.

        As for the gorilla, they’re a monogamous species, very social, fiercely protective of their loved ones but nowhere near as terrorial as a black mamba and look like they’d be great at cuddling, so I’d say that the choice is clear…