Why Humans are Better Endurance Runners than Any Other Animal?

Abstract

It is well known that only man is capable of endurance running and in this sense he has no equal among animals. Why do other animals have us beat over short distances, but are not able to run long distances as long as humans? There are different answers. Walking upright has allowed us to become some of the best distance runners in the world, but at the expense of speed. It is also believed that to run long distances on the African savannah man needed to have an effective cooling system and it is believed that man has developed one. Firstly, heat exchange improved due to the disappearance of fur. Secondly, humans learned to sweat intensively. They also attach importance to the diet and the lifestyle. There are other answers, but they have little relevance to the question discussed here. Can the above answers be considered exhaustive? We believe that there is another important factor unique to man, which ultimately allowed him to occupy the top of the food chain. This factor is the peculiarity of the heat-conducting ability of the human body. Man became a good long-distance runner because among animals he has the most highly heat-conducting body, which allowed him to effectively dissipate excess heat outside the body.