Dan Bevacqua

If you don’t know who Carl Akeley was, here’s your chance to learn about one of the biggest badasses in US History.  I mean, he was BFF with Teddy Roosevelt, so you can imagine he knows how to throw down.  Speaking of which…

After a long day of hunting and observing wildlife in Somalia, Carl Akeley was headed back to camp, where he’d bagged a hyena and warthog earlier in the day.  When he got there all he saw was a couple of big bloody streaks leading off into a thick brush.  Akeley froze, realizing what was happening, just as an enormous leopard leaped towards him teeth-first.  Unable to get his weapon back around quickly enough, Akeley dropped his gun and threw his arm up just in time to prevent the vicious beast from ripping out his throat. The leopard latched on to Akeley’s left hand, chomping down with all its might.  When his attempts to pull his hand out of the leopards’ jaws only made the creature bite down harder, Akeley, locked in a life or death fistfight with one of the most perfect predators nature ever created, did one of the most insane things ever – he punched his fist further into the leopard’s mouth. Yes, you are reading that correctly. Carl Akeley, noted philanthropist and respected wildlife conservationist, punched a fucking leopard in the esophagus from the inside. The leopard gagged, Akeley pulled his hand out, and then he took the thing, bodyslammed it to the ground, and jumped on it with both knees, crushing it to death. Then Akeley, bleeding profusely from horrific wounds on both hands, clawed to shit, still recovering from a recent battle with malaria, and barely able to stand, picked up the leopard (despite a shattered hand), threw it over his shoulder, walked back to camp with it, and turned it into taxidermy for a museum exhibit.