What do you think will replace mankind as the dominant species of Earth?
If mankind were to suddenly go extinct, what species would take its place? Would they rebuild a new society? How long would it take for them to dominate this planet?
Also say we just dissapeared from a virus or something that only infected humans. In other words, all other species would survive.
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it depends on how we become extinct rats come to mind first then there are cock roaches
Robots.
They are already dominating our lives… we call them “computers”.
I have the feeling mankind will do all in its power to drag down all species along with us if the end is eminent.
In before mice/dolphins!
(seriously, Douglas Adams was not that clever)
Insects maybe; they haven’t had their shot yet. Reptiles ruled the earth once, but a meteor proved that mamels were better suited to survive a nuclear winter effect. Insects adapt better to radiation, so maybe a gamma ray burst or something will take out mamels and leave insects as the dominant class.
The dominant species, at least by count, is some sort of microbe. For example, the number of bacteria cells in your body right now outnumbers the number of human cells in your body by a factor of about 10. For an adult human, about 10 kg of mass is bacteria. The bacteria cells are smaller than the human cells. There are certainly more e. coli than humans, and by a large factor.
What would be the new smartest animal? Probably some chimpanzee or bonobo descendant. We’re only 4 to 6 million years from them, from an evolution perspective.
Cephalapods (squids and octupuses). If all vertabrates were wiped out, these guy would be the most likely to take our place as the intelligent species. Of all invertabrates, these are the smartest.
But, before they can replace us, they would have to overcome one little problem: how to live on land. After they do this, it’s full steam ahead. Hope this helps
If we all died of a virus, and it didn’t affect the great apes and other primates, my bet would be that they would take over, maybe even re-evolving into something akin to humans. If it DID affect them too (because we’re so similar), then I would guess something fairly intelligent, adaptable, and able to move freely about the planet (aka: cockroaches).