[nend]

I mean if the criteria is just those four: strength, top speed, climbing ability, swimming ability - there's probably a lot of animals that are subjectively better than us.

It would depend on how you measure/aggregate it but off the top of my head you could make an argument for: most large cats, chimpanzee, orangutan, bears, some pigs, etc.

[rootusrootus]

It may be that endurance is all we got. But I was thinking that a chimp is very strong and can climb, but is he any good at running and swimming? A cat is a heck of a runner, but isn't really a great climber aside from specific situations. Humans are fairly adaptable.

But probably it just comes down to our endurance/ability to control body temperature, and big brains to devise creative ways of defeating other animals.

[fogihujy]

That's one hell of an advantage on the other hand; not only can we move entire populations in a fairly short time-frame (by simply grabbing our things and walk/run there), we can also adapt to the new surroundings and find ways to thrive. It's easy too see how our ancestors and other hominids colonized the entire planet.