And the mightiest land mammal, too, being slightly faster than the athlete, would leave him trailing behind. However, Bolt would still be faster than the black mamba, which can attain a speed of 12.5 mph.
Sarah, a cheetah residing at the Cincinnati zoo is undoubtedly the fastest of all land mammals. On June 20, 2012 she ran 100m in 5.95 seconds with a top speed of 61 mph. That's nearly 4 seconds faster than Bolt's 100m world record and more than double his top speed.
Still, the world's fastest man would have a hard time beating a warthog, cat, or rabbit to the finish line. Citing the book "Zoom: How Everything Moves, from Atoms and Galaxies to Blizzards and Bees," the report states that the domestic cat, warthog and rabbit can run at 30 mph.
Rule Number 1: Don't Try To Outrun A Snake
The very fastest snake, the Black Mamba, can slither at about 12 MPH, and a truly scared human (even one with short legs) could probably exceed that. No, the reason your kid doesn't want to outrun a snake is because they almost certainly don't have to.
Bear in mind that Usain Bolt, who holds the record for the world's fastest human, reached a top speed of 27.79 mph. Consequently, even he would be unable to escape from a tiger. Considering that most humans would be 10 mph slower than Bolt, it is obvious that no human would be able to outrun a tiger.
Even Usain Bolt, the world's fastest man, couldn't outrun a steadfast grizzly or black bear at full speed.
There's the cheetah, of course, but also horses, ostriches, greyhounds, grizzly bears, kangaroos, wild boars, even some house cats. Usain Bolt, the fastest man alive, ran 100 meters in 9.58 seconds.
Unfortunately, the black mamba can move at about 7 mph and strike much, much faster. That means the snake moves about as fast as the average person jogs. A black mamba will chase a person down to kill them. However, their speed does make getting away from one that feels threatened a bit more difficult.
The black mamba is supposedly the most dangerous snake, while the inland taipan is likely the snake with the deadliest venom.
That's just not possible, tsunami safety experts told LiveScience, even for Usain Bolt, one of the world's quickest sprinters.
Hunting. Komodo dragons can reach speeds of up to 20km/h. Usain Bolt can run 45km/h.
You can't outrun a kangaroo. Its lowest natural running speed is about 25 km per hour and it can comfortably run at 40km per hour for distances up to 2 kilometres and up to 70 kilometres per hour for short distances. Usain Bolt might manage it for 100 metres or so but even he would be run down very quickly.
The fastest hippo on record reached 40 km/h. Usain Bolt averaged 37 km/h during his fastest race, reaching a peak of 44 km/h.
Fastest land animal: Cheetah.
In the 100-meter dash, Bolt motors at 27.78 mph, slightly faster than a typical big, athletic dog. But it's nowhere near the top speed of a star greyhound like Shakey, who lives in Australia. Shakey ran only one race in his career, won it by an astonishing 22 lengths, and was retired to stud.
Before we get to the fun bit, we should note that black mambas are from Africa and inland taipans are from Australia. This means under natural circumstances, the two species would never meet.
The inland or western taipan, Oxyuranus microlepidotus, is the most venomous snake in the world, according to Britannica. Native to Australia, this snake has the deadliest venom based on median lethal dose, or LD50, tests on mice.
The Eastern brown snake (Pseudonaja textilis) has a venom LD 50 value of 0.053 mg SC (Brown, 1973) and a value of 0.0365 mg SC (Ernst and Zug et al. 1996). According to both studies, it is the second most venomous snake in the world.
Like most diurnal snakes in South Africa, black mambas are considered to have good vision. They are able to detect motion and may strike if they pick up any sudden movement perceived as a threat. Their keen eyesight also helps them hunt for the small mammals that typically make up their diet.
Their main threats are from people, who fear the snakes and their aggressive reputation. While black mambas are often killed out of fear by the people who live near them, their main predators are mongooses, honey badgers, birds such as brown snake eagles, secretary birds, and black-headed herons.
Twenty minutes after being bitten you may be lose the ability to talk. After one hour you're probably comatose, and by six hours, without an antidote, you are dead. A person will experience "pain, paralysis and then death within six hours," says Damaris Rotich, the curator for the snake park in Nairobi.
So now, you've got a gorilla who most likely can catch up to all but the most elite sprinters on the planet. Conclusion: You're not outrunning the gorilla. The average gorilla is approximately six to 15 times as strong (depending on who you ask).
Rats and house cats were the easiest presumed pushovers, with two-thirds of participants claiming they could see one off, while grizzly bears, elephants and lions were rightfully respected – only 2 per cent of pollsters claimed they would be able to take one down.
There is a growing consensus among the scientific community – evolutionary biologists, paleoanthropologists, neuroscientists and other dilettantes – that our bodies and brains evolved to run long distances so we could slowly hunt down animals on the African savannahs.