Animal Attack Riddles That Could Save Your Life

Animal attacks are the stuff of nightmares, and something everyone hopes they’ll never encounter. But the reality is that wandering the wilderness there’s always a chance something could be lurking just out of sight, sizing you up as a tasty meal. In that scenario, your survival depends on what you know, and how you apply it. Let’s put your survival skills to the test, on a journey through these animal attack riddles that could save your life!

Coyote Attack

Picture the scene. You’re hiking deep in the woods, when you happen upon a coyote in your path. It spots you and begins snarling but doesn’t approach you. You have a rock in your hand, and the coyote is easily within throwing distance. Which option is safest?

A: Throw the rock at the coyote’s head.

B: Throw the rock at the coyote’s body.

C: Throw the rock at the ground near the coyote’s feet.

While landing a dead-on head or body-shot might seem like a smart move, the coyote hasn’t shown any signs of approaching you yet. While the snarling is aggressive, it may just be warning you to stay out of its territory. Directly harming it could trigger an otherwise-avoidable attack response.

Aiming for the ground by its feet will likely frighten the coyote without causing it harm and is more likely to make it flee than attack. Thankfully, that’s precisely what happens: as soon as the pebble hits the ground, he flees, and you continue your journey.

Moose Attack

Further along your journey, you hitch a ride on a boat, which drops you on the riverbank of an extremely snowy forest before sailing off, leaving you alone. As you walk onto the only path cleared in the deep snow, you hear a strange sound ahead.

Then you spot it. It’s a moose calf. And worse yet, his momma is standing behind him, and she’s acting kind of strange. Her head is lowered, and she’s looking in your general direction. Could this be a sign of an imminent attack? You’d better assess the situation quickly, and choose an appropriate reaction. Do you:

A: Stay in place and wait to see what happens next.

B: Run quickly into the 25-inch-deep snow either side of the path to escape.

C: Dive into the river behind you and try swimming away.

If mama moose is indeed about to attack, going for a swim isn’t the best of ideas. For starters, in a snowy region like this, you’d likely catch hypothermia pretty quickly. And besides, moose are extremely good swimmers, so it’d probably catch you before your teeth even began to chatter.

The snow, being so deep, would be extremely troublesome, not to mention, freezing, for you to make your way through. And for an adult moose, snow needs to be at least 40 inches deep before it becomes a problem to traverse, so heading into the snow wouldn’t help you escape.

But in this case, neither of those risky options are necessary. The moose hasn’t exhibited any definite signs of aggression yet, as lowering of the head isn’t always a warning-sign of an attack. You’re best off waiting for a moment to gauge its behavior more fully before you make any dangerous choices you might regret.

While you’re trying to remain calm and still, you accidentally let out a sneeze, startling the baby moose. Mama moose does not look pleased about this. Her ears are pressed back against her head, you can see the whites of her eyes, and she’s licking her lips. What do you do?

A: Sing the moose a lullaby and hope for the best.

B: Throw a handful of rocks at the mama moose.

C: Shout, scream and jump, with your arms spread wide.

Throwing rocks at a moose exhibiting signs of aggression, like licking its lips and pinning its ears back, is dangerously-likely to trigger an attack. And with a double-footed kick strong enough to collapse your skull, man-on-moose combat is the last thing you want. Making a lot of noise to try intimidating the moose is similarly likely to trigger an attack, as it’ll see you as a threat to its child.

But making calm, low sounds is proven to be one of the most effective methods of assuring a moose that you aren’t a threat. As strange as it seems, lullabies are actually a very useful tool to guide your voice into those relaxing tones and rhythms. So, once the moose calms down, onwards you go.

The Righteous Path

After walking several miles, the path you’re walking splits off into three. Which path is the riskiest, and should be avoided at all costs?

A: The path leading to a steep, 30-ft drop, littered with thorny plants.

B: The path that’s crawling with whip scorpions.

C: The path with a dead deer in the middle.

While whip scorpions certainly look intimidating, they’re harmless to humans, so there’d be no real danger following that path. Same goes for the 30-ft cliff-face. If you look closely, you’ll see there’s a path through the thorns with footholds for you to descend. It’s a little risky, but nowhere near as risky as option C.

The path in the option C has a half-eaten deer, likely left there by a cougar, bear or wolf. Chances are, they’re either still nearby, or will soon be returning to finish their meal. Approaching a predator’s kill is a sure-fire to get attacked, so avoid half-eaten carcasses at all costs!

Mountain Lion Attack

Following a seemingly-safe path, you hear a quiet impact on the ground behind you. You turn around, just in time to dodge a swipe from a mountain lion! It’s preparing to pounce, so what do you do to survive?

A: Drop to the floor and play dead immediately.

B: Attack with maximum aggression, hitting as hard as possible and making a lot of noise.

C: Adopt a defensive stance and attempt to dodge its attacks.

When a mountain lion chooses to attack, its intention is to kill you, so you need to make sure it knows you won’t be an easy meal. Fight with all you’ve got, using any nearby objects to strike its face. If possible, pin the beast down with your foot on the back of its neck, to try to choke it out. You need to prove you’re not worth the mountain lion’s energy expenditure, until it either flees or is incapacitated.

Cougar Attack

Unfortunately, your attempts to frighten and fight off the cougar have failed. It pounces at you, knocking you down. With no clear way to escape, which position do you adopt to help your odds of surviving this attack?

A: Curl up into a ball.

B: Lie on your front, with your arms and legs splayed out as far as possible.

C: Lie on your front, holding your arms around the back of your neck.

As comforting as it may be to curl up into a ball, it’ll leave the vital arteries and airways of your neck clearly exposed. As cougars aim to dispatch threats and prey as quickly as possible, they almost always attack the neck for a quick kill. This means splaying yourself out on your front is no good either.

Against a mountain lion, protecting your neck makes you much harder to kill, which, after a while, makes you an inefficient source of cougar calories. Making yourself too difficult to bother with could well guarantee your survival, and in this case, it does! The cougar gives up and walks away.

Having narrowly avoided becoming cat food, your priority is to return to safety. But there may be more mountain lions lurking along the way. Luckily, you’ve stumbled across an old backpack containing three items, one of which could prove useful in avoiding another cougar attack. Which do you choose:

A: A cowbell that clangs noisily with each step you take.

B: A large can of bug spray.

C: A selection of catnip-filled kitty toys.

For starters, if avoiding forest felines is what you want, catnip is a no-go. Just like their domestic counterparts, most cougars are naturally attracted to the scent of catnip. While you may be able to distract them for a moment by throwing the toys in their direction, they may get defensive over the catnip and become more aggressive. You’re much better off avoiding attracting them altogether.

While a can of bug spray won’t attract cougars, it won’t help much either, besides squirting out a mildly-stinging mist with an unpleasant scent in the instance you’re attacked again. The most useful cougar deterrent, however, is the cowbell.

While noisily alerting the surrounding area to your presence may seem like a terrible way to avoid detection, this is precisely the point. Many animal attacks occur when a wild creature is taken by surprise. By alerting predators to your presence in advance, you can prevent any surprises that might trigger an attack.

Plus, wild animals tend to be fearful of the unnatural sound of metal clanging, increasing the chances they’ll immediately flee altogether, even if they’d previously been sizing you up for a meal!

Boar Attack

Though your cowbell has successfully warded off predators along your journey, your luck suddenly runs out with a threat of a different kind. Out of the undergrowth comes a wild boar, tusks in the air, charging right at you! What’s the best choice to ensure you get out of this unscathed?

A: Run away as fast as you can.

B: Climb a tree and tell it to go away.

C: Attempt to stab the boar with a sharpened stick lying nearby.

Unless you’re Usain Bolt, good luck outrunning a wild boar. They can reach speeds of up to 30mph, which is faster than the human world record, meaning you’d likely have your legs gored or broken by its tusks before getting far. Attempting an attack is a bold move, but you’d need a very strong, sturdy weapon to hurt a boar. With notoriously thick hides, a thin stick will more than likely snap during your attempt, leaving you vulnerable to their tusks.

Your best option is heading straight up that tree to safety, shouting loudly at the boar to scare it off. If telling it to leave doesn’t work, at least you have somewhere safe to sit until it gets bored and wanders off, no longer seeing you as a threat.

Jaguar Attack

After your stressful woodland trip, you decide to try your luck in a different type of tree-filled location: A South American rainforest. But you’re barely a mile into your first day’s hiking, when you hear the snapping of twigs above you. Before you know it, a tremendous weight lands on your shoulders, forcing you to the ground. You’ve been pounced on by a jaguar, one of nature’s most fearsome killing machines!

Pinned on your front, with a deadly bite imminent, what’s your last-ditch move to improve your very slim chances of making it out alive, using your hands and arms?

A: Cover your neck.

B: Cover the back of your head.

C: Cover your face.

Already lying face-down, choosing to cover your face leaves the back half of your head and body completely open to an attack. And while covering your neck may work against a cougar, it’s a different story for a jaguar. Instead of biting the neck to suffocate prey, jaguars go straight for the head. With extremely powerful jaws, jaguars deliver a fatal bite through the skull, piercing the brain.

For this reason, it’s up to you to do all you can to protect your head, even if it means losing an arm in the process. Your chances of survival are slim, but like most animal attacks, it’s all a matter of making yourself an inconveniently difficult meal. In this case, you’re in luck, and, unable to make the puncture, the jaguar leaves you for easier kills elsewhere.

Hippo Attack

With rainforests ruined for you forever, your next vacation takes you to the plains of Africa, where you’re hoping to see some wildlife without almost dying. But being incredibly unlucky, it’s not long before a pleasant afternoon nature-walk sees you face to face with an angry hippopotamus, which instantly charges you, huge mouth agape. How do you get out of this one alive?

A: Make yourself appear large and shout as loud as you can.

B: Climb a tree that’s occupied by a sharp-beaked, grumpy-looking shoebill stork.

C: Leap into the nearby pond filled with tall grass, coating yourself in mud to mask your scent.

In hippo territory, never go into tall grass, especially around water. Hippos use high grass for protection against the heat in summer, and more than likely, jumping into a patch of it would only leave you face-to-face with more angry hippos! Making yourself appear larger wouldn’t mean much to a creature as big, aggressive, and deadly as a hippo. Especially seeing as males can weigh up to 4.5 tons, with a bite-force strong enough to crush a watermelon like a grape.

Hippos can’t, however, climb trees, and shoebill storks are usually docile towards humans, making it a suitable neighbor to climb up with. Even if the shoebill did object to you joining it up there, its peck is nothing compared to the chomp of a hippo, so up the tree you go!

Elephant Attack

After hours of waiting, the hippo finally retreats, and you bid your shoebill friend adieu. But on your way to safety, you end up faced with three tunnels formed from trees and bushes. Each tunnel contains an elephant with a 20-ft gap you should be able to squeeze through, but only if the elephant doesn’t attack!

There’s no turning back, as your previous hippo adversary has nearly caught up with you again from behind. Forward is the only option to escape, but which path’s elephant is least likely to attack you?

A: The elephant with wide eyes, standing very still, with its ears pulled back against its head.

B: The elephant with eyes half-closed, tale swishing, ears flapping.

C: The relatively calm-looking elephant with fluid dribbling out of its temples.

Out of the three tunnels, the last one you want to take a trip down is the one containing an elephant with fluid leaking from its temples. This liquid is secreted from glands between male elephants’ eyes and ears during a process called musth. Musth is something male elephants regularly go through, where testosterone levels become significantly higher than usual, causing massively increased aggression.

This liquid is also occasionally secreted by females when alarmed, and an alarmed elephant can be extremely dangerous and unpredictable. So, whether it’s a male or female, seeing this secretion should be an instant warning sign to stay away, even if it does look otherwise calm.

As for the elephant in tunnel A, wide eyes, minimal movement, and ears pulled back are all signs of stress and tension in an elephant. Getting too close to a stressed-out elephant would be a very bad idea, unless you want to be stomped to death.

Which leaves the elephant in tunnel B. This elephant’s half-closed eyes, swishing tale, and flapping ears are all signs of a relaxed, comfortable elephant. While elephants can be unpredictable even when calm, tunnel B is still a much safer option than the others, and seeing as the hippo is getting closer, you’d best try your luck!

You’ve made it through the tunnel unharmed by the friendly elephant inside, only to encounter a not-so-friendly elephant on the other side! This one’s not messing around, and begins charging towards you immediately. To avoid becoming human jelly, which option do you choose?

A: Climb this tree.

B: Climb onto this 6ft-tall boulder.

C: Run up to the top of this steep hill.

While a tree like this might provide a good escape spot against a wild boar or even a hippo, it’s useless when trying to escape an elephant. Elephants regularly make light work of knocking down trees, which means you’d be coming down with it in a matter of seconds. That same strength could potentially tip the boulder over too. But considering elephants have an average height between 8 and 13 feet, it wouldn’t even need to tip the 6ft-tall boulder to be able to reach you.

Running up a steep hill, on the other hand, is a surprisingly effective method of evading elephants. As silly as it sounds, elephants really don’t like climbing hills. In fact, back in 2006, researchers from Oxford University found that elephants will go considerable distances out of their way to avoid sloped terrain.

Seeing as elephants are so large and heavy, it takes a lot of energy to not only lift themselves, but to maintain balance on an uphill climb. So, using elephants’ aversion to slopes to your advantage, you’re able to climb to a height where, thankfully, the angry elephant leaves you alone.

Shark Attack

After your traumatic elephant encounter, you take a relaxing trip to the seaside. But as you’re gently floating on a surfboard, alone, just under a mile out to sea, you feel something bump against you. Looking down, there’s no mistaking: it’s an 8ft-long bull shark. It’s repeatedly bumping you, harder each time, with no sign of stopping. What should you absolutely not do?

A: Rip at the shark’s gills with your fingernails.

B: Bonk it on the nose with your foot.

C: Don’t attempt to harm it; calmly paddle away.

Do not attempt to flee from a bull shark. They’re notoriously aggressive compared to other species thanks to their exceptionally-high testosterone levels and will pursue you if they’ve taken an interest. If it’s repeatedly bumping you, it’s probably moved past the curiosity phase and is now sizing you up, mistaking you for its regular food. Not defending yourself means letting it see you as an easy meal.

Ripping at its gills or kicking its super-sensitive nose is going to cause a shark a lot of pain, which is your best bet of getting it to reassess whether you’re worth the trouble. Unfortunately, despite your best efforts, this shark just isn’t giving up. It’s destroyed your surfboard and now you’re going to have to fight it. But to stand the best chance going toe-to-fin with a shark, what’s the best fighting style to adopt?

A: Throw calculated punches with long wind-ups at its nose and eyes for maximum impact.

B: Deliver short, swift jabs to its nose and eyes with minimal wind-up.

C: Grip the shark and squeeze it as tightly as possible, refusing to let go.

While gripping the shark’s rough skin may be possible, its agility would make keeping hold extremely difficult. Plus, it could always swim deep down and drown you, or rupture your eardrums from the sudden changes in pressure. Big punches with a long windup are an inefficient way to fight underwater, as you’ll lose momentum due to water resistance. Short, swift jabs, on the other hand, allow more frequent impacts with less resistance, delivering greater overall damage.

The more hits you can get in, the more likely it is to back down! After a series of jabs to the nose and eyes, the bull shark seems to have wandered off. Better yet, someone’s steering a speedboat in your direction, and they appear to have spotted you! But it’ll take them a few minutes to reach you, and the shark could return at any moment. What’s your safest option?

A: Keep leg movement minimal and wave slowly to the speedboat.

B: Swim fast and hard toward the boat.

C: Locate the shark and swim directly above it so it can’t see you.

While a bull shark’s vision isn’t fantastic, the placement of its eyes means its only blind spots are directly in front of its snout and behind its head. Swimming above it will make you more visible than ever. Swimming hard and fast won’t help much either. Sharks have incredible receptors that alert them to erratic, panicked splashing and water movement. In your hurry to get to the boat, you might reignite the shark’s predatory instincts and spark a pursuit.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, staying relatively still is actually your best option. You’re much less likely to recapture the shark’s attention, and if it does return, it’ll be less likely to see you as food. So, scary as it seems, you’ll need to calmly wait, using minimal leg movement to guide yourself in the right direction, and make sure the boat can see you.

Killer Bees Attack

After being rescued and returned to shore, you come across a strange scene not far from the beach. There are 3 terrified-looking people, standing at equal distances from a tree. In the branches of the tree is a hive of Africanized Honeybees, commonly known as Killer Bees!

Africanized Honeybees are highly sensitive to color and will attack anything bearing colors they perceive as threatening. One of the people is wearing an outfit that’ll trigger the bees to attack them first. Who should you warn to run away first before they get attacked in the image below?

A: Person wearing black.

B: Person wearing white.

C: Person wearing vibrant colors.

Wearing a white t-shirt around aggressive bees is always the safest bet. Pale colors like white are the most neutral to bees, which is why beekeepers favor pale outfits. However, bees associate more vibrant colors, like the bright yellow this person’s wearing, with flowers and are likely to investigate, though not necessarily attack outright.

But bees associate dark colors like black with predators, and hence perceive any creature sporting those dark colors as a threat to be neutralized. You shout a warning to the black-clothed individual, and they hot-tail it out of there. But all the commotion has stirred up the bees, and now they’re coming for you! With the bees hot on your tail, you’ll need to think fast to escape. Which escape-route should you take?

A: Sprint 500ft back to the beach and hide under the water.

B: Run continuously for a quarter-mile in one direction.

C: Stay in position and calmly swat the bees until there are none left.

No matter how accurate you are, swatting every member of a Killer Bee colony is above your pay-grade. Once some of them sting you, they’ll release alarm pheromones, summoning more and more until you’re completely overwhelmed, and quite likely, dead.

While humans and Killer Bees are pretty closely matched when it comes to speed, sprinting 500ft to the sea won’t stop them. Killer bees are known to pursue threats up to 1,000ft from their hive, and they’ll often wait above water for threats to re-surface. Which means running a quarter-mile, or 1,320ft, is your best hope of escaping their enormous range of pursuit.

Wolf Attack

Having escaped the bees, you continue into the nearby forest. But just as you’re beginning to relax, you hear something that sends shivers down your spine. Just up ahead, there’s a wolf pack gathered around a fallen deer. One of the wolves is eating the deer, but the others, who were waiting their turn, are now staring right at you.

You can tell it’s only going to be a matter of seconds before all three wolves come for you, and the nearest safe spot is a cabin a quarter-mile away. In a stroke of luck, you find a functioning .44 magnum stashed in a tree trunk, but there’s only one bullet.

Under any normal circumstances, you’d never dream of shooting a wolf, but right now, it’s either you or one of them. You’ve got a sharpshooter’s aim, but which wolf should be your target if you want to stand a chance of making it out alive?

A: The one that was feasting on the deer.

B: The one with an eye missing and a ferocious growl.

C: The largest, most muscular one.

While a ferocious growl is certainly foreboding, it doesn’t actually reveal much about how dangerous the one-eyed wolf might be compared to the others. And while taking out the biggest in the group would mean one less set of fangs to worry about when the pack attacks, the others still remain a deadly threat.

But the wolf who’s been allowed to eat first while the other wolves wait is very likely part of the breeding pair, otherwise known as the alphas, the leaders of the pack. Seeing as there are no other wolves eating, the other half of the breeding pair may have died. This means that, if you kill the remaining alpha, there will be no leader remaining.

While wolves won’t necessarily automatically flee when their leader is killed, they are highly emotionally-intelligent animals with strong emotional bonds. The loss of the only remaining alpha could, at the very least, cause enough of a distraction to buy you some time while they investigate the body. It’s your best bet to cover the quarter-mile back to the cabin, where you’ll be safe. At least for now.

If you were amazed at these animal attack riddles, you might want to read these tips on how to survive wild animal attacks. Thanks for reading!