After we're gone, what will take over the earth?

Question

Once humanity has deleted itself from natural history, what species will rise up and take over? How will it evolve as it does so? Will it have opposable thumbs and fire? Will it develop religion which it swiftly dumps after it discovers our bones? Will it even be a vertebrate?

Hats off to leviter. "higher degree of cephalisation" followed by "massive headstart" - sweet!

Answer 1

Of course it is impossible to say no mat5ter what information we have because evolution has a strong random component. But at the very least we would need ot know why humans vanished in order to know what other species will also be eliminated.

I would tend to favour the rodents as the next dominant group since they are omnivorous, adaptable, cosmopolitan and have evolved sociality independently numerous times. But of course we couldn’t have predicted that the last intelligent species would originate from a small a band of browsing animals restricted to rainforest so really such criteria are only helpful, not necessary.

Will it have opposable thumbs? Probably. It will certainly need some way to achieve fine manipulation of tools and logically the forelimbs will be the way that is done, which means thumbs will be needed. But of course there are numerous other options such as tentacles or trunks that would work just as well or better.

Will it have fire? If it doesn’t its intelligence will be severely limited. Without an external energy source high intelligence really serves no purpose. One possible alternative to fire is of the species develops domestication techniques very early in its evolutionary history and is able to exploit other species as an energy source.

Will it be vertebrate? Most likely. Vertebrates show a much higher degree of cephalisation than any other group so they have a massive headstart. If not a vertebrate then almost certainly a cephalopod.

Answer 2

According to Aztec Mythology our current time was considered the fifth world, the previous four having been destroyed by flood, fire and the like. Quetzalcoatl allegedly went to Mictlan, the underworld, and created fifth-world mankind from the bones of the previous races (with the help of Cihuacoatl), using his own blood, from a wound in his phallus, to imbue the bones with new life.

If we let our minds run with that information, it means that we are part alien or hybrids, that is probably the reason why we can not adapt to this world, to many diseases we can not explain in modern medicine, earth is a hostile environment because we did not part of earth natural evolution. So what will come after us? Probably a more advanced alien race that will not need to have religion as part of their culture. If the gods are really watching they now know that religion is going to cause men destruction and they will keep it out from their future experiments.

Answer 3

It's worth considering the option that the new 'rulers of the earth' may be some kind of social animal, like the ant, in which you might equate each individual to a braincell in an animal (or human) as we understand it.

This kind of association may already be happening but our narrow-minded thinking limits us to perceiving life and culture in our own image - each as an individual not as a collective intelligence.

Answer 4

It'll definately be wolves. Evolved, muscular, super-intelligent wolves, still bitter from the horrible deformities their ancestors had suffered due to humans' existance. Also, I think iwolves will be the reason we were wiped out in the first place. Go wolves!

Answer 5

I think that phase is not going to come...human will always rule the planet earth as we have techiques called "human clonning" which could be of great use to maintain human population on earth for forever...we are not leaving the earth on any cost...you hear that Aliens.....we will always be here.....Aliens do you still wanna scare us...huh??

Answer 6

The fishes and the fairies of course!!!!! muhahahahahahahahahaha *cough* where was I? erm mwahahahahahahahaahhahahahahahaaaaaaaa

(Me and Fairy Rie and Evil J Twin, may not really have a plan to take of the world!, We may just leave it up to BaBy. )

Answer 7

Daddy Long Legs Spiders. They're flipping everywhere this year!!

And as they prey on each other sometimes they won't even need any other insects as a food source.

*shudders*

Answer 8

Dorypanda is right, except Evil is still a human. We won't get infected with religion though :)

Answer 9

I would imagine that the reptiles will take over once again. Although there are still some tough mammals.

Answer 10

God rules the earth and he is taking over it, nobody will be gone, because there will be people on earth forever.Believe me. Great question, you are a smart thinker.