Everything is this world tells us we are special, separate from our fellow creatures. We have the bigger brains, movable thumbs - we are the top of the food chain and are going to stay there for a long time to come. The basic attitude of Homo Sapiens is "Yeah, they’re cute and all, it’s a shame they don’t have the skills to survive like we do. Boy, what was Mother Nature thinking when she put powerhouses like us on the planet?" We even have a class for those "lower species". We call them animals - the same word we use for someone who is acting stupid or inane.

I think we disillusion ourselves. It is true - other animals don’t think, or at least not as much as we do. You’ll never see a dog lost in thought, or cat sitting there stuck with indecision. We are special and unique. But better?

I know exactly what you’re going to say. But tell me - which were the better survivors: mammals or dinosaurs?

You probably said mammals. But at the time, mammals weren’t exactly top of the food chain. They were back then what insects are today, as far as the food chain goes. *Squish*

Successful animals are like fads. Think back to the dinosaurs. If you lived back then, I doubt you call the mammals "ultimate survivors". If not for a little stroke of luck (or misfortune) mammals would probably have stayed at their lonely spot on the food chain.

Then one asteroid - just one - turned the whole table around. Mammals proved that things at the top of the food chain switch around like the Top Ten Songs of the Year. If not for one asteroid . . . if not for one monkey who avoided being kitty chow . . . if not for one area where the rain forest dried out and the monkeys had to stand on two legs to see above the grass . . . we would not be where where we are today.

So what makes you think that we will not "go out of fashion" like the dinosaurs? We haven’t even been around half as long as the dinosaurs, and already we are losing our grip on this planet. Global warming. Seas rising. It might not take an asteroid to finish us off.

But we have superior intelligence, right? That will make the difference. And before the saber tooths had superior speed, the dinosaurs superior size. And who knows what came before those. The fact is, intelligence, like all of the survival traits that came before us, will eventually go out of fashion.

So look around carefully, next time you go outside. Watch every little creature, for you never know exactly who will be inheriting this Earth next . . .

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