our sucessors

ok. say we finaly go extinct. what ois the most likly animal to take over after us. which one is smart enough and has good enough manipilation cababilities.
seems like a simple guess at first, but, ill throw in a challenge for you
three diffenrt scenarios of our extinction. each one will affect whats left on the planet
1. a human specific virus, hits world wide, kills large amounts of us. the aftermath kills even more. in the end there are to few us scatterd world wide to repopulate the species sucessfully. this happens so quickly are envirionmental impact is what it is today, so more specialized extinction prone chimps,dolphins and other intelligent animals may survive. mid range such as crows are here to. much more durable intelligant animals such as cephalopods are here to
2. we extend our envrionmental impact and wipe out most or all specialized animals, generalist are some what threatend.
3. all out nuke war. all land vertabrates are gone. large amounts of sea life dies to(sea may have some more because its thought that creatures at extreme depths would be far less impacted.

so here are your three scenarios. try to think up which would survive such events and go on to rule.
my guess is for #1. probaly chimps or some other ape. #2 im not even sure yet. #3, my guess is there will be some deep sea cephlapod will rule

We are unique. Just because we die off doesn't mean something automatically fills the void. The earth would continue without man and that's about it. Chimps will still be chimps and sea creatures will still be sea creatures. Any evolution into an intelligent species on our level will take billions upon billions of years so your question isn't really relevant.

im personally betting on insects




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reply to post by AnotherYOU


interesting idea, but if the earth stays like it is, they have little potential to grown in any size which will of corse limit their brain size. only because their size is limited by the amount of oxygen. their respitory system moves very little oxygen around. so there would need to be an increase in it first. Which i suppose if co2 goes up and plant levels stay somewhat consistant, that may actualy workout for them

reply to post by kro32


i find it hard to tell, because no civilization that we know before has occured. something new could show up within 1 million, or maybe 100 milion, or maybe never

reply to post by connorromanow


That's why I said were unique. Out of our 6 billion plus history of earth we are the only known intelligent species though others may have existed it is doubtful. We are an anomoly so I imagine earth would continue on as it did before we arrived.

But your right. You never know what could happen.

Reply to post by connorromanow

they dont need to get bigger, they have the numbers.

ever seen the marabunta swarm in the amazon?




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reply to post by AnotherYOU


they do have that on their side. i just never thought of that. they are the olest land animals so hey probabl have a chance

Reply to post by connorromanow

and last time i checked cockroaches are the ultimate survivors




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reply to post by kro32


there was some thought that an advanced civilization could have existed and left little behind, if youve seen life after people most of what we mae goes away after 1000 years. and anything thats left sat a compute chip, or a plastic bottle could just be ruled out as a hoax by any archelogists

Reply to post by connorromanow

the fact is a trully advanced civilization would leave little or no traces of their passage.

a biodegradable civilization so to speak


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reply to post by AnotherYOU


that seems to be the way were moving now

I think ted mcginley, dick clark, and cockroaches will be all that survives. They never die, never.

I am counting on lizards, maybe they will evolve into something similiar to the Draco reptilians. But Even if most of us humans are killed off by a disaster I am sure we will rebuild. As for any traces left over I am thinking maybe the NORAC or mt Cheymme and maybe some of the facilities that handle nuclear waste will survive since they are secure. Maybe the net civilization will find them.

reply to post by mrsalazar


i might side with you on the lizard thing, if the sun gets warmer, it becomes better for them to spread out and that could open new doors for them
an yeah wed probably rebuild after a pandemic, i just needed a scenario where we could be wiped out without killing other species.

reply to post by connorromanow


possibly ants?

reply to post by indigothefish


theyve alreay built cities out of dirt, so with the right traits, its possible for something bigger, but would all ants be intelligant or just the queen, an the others are just workers

I think that if things get that bad then we are only going to be succeeded by bacteria which sounds nice because that's how all this mess started in the first place

dolphins will sprout legs and build theatres.

if intelligence was a fluke then no mammal will become the no1 dominant species as they cant survive in the many conditions of earth.
we survive because we make clothes and import food.

insects won't rise to be the dominant species, they'll stay where they always have been, surviving another billion years.