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Human Race goes extinct!!! Can any species replace us?

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LegendChu

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  • I think the most likely candidate would either be another great ape species convergently evolving into another very human like creature to fill the ecological niche we left behind.
    There are several animals with the potential to evolve human-esque intelligence should we for some reason go extinct without taking the planet with us. Off the top of my head other primates and octopi are good options.

    I guess, primates would be first choice that comes to mind, coz we evolved from them. But that is the problem, we evolved a lot, they didn't.

    Cockroaches. Those things are indestructible.
    All hail cockroach overlords.
    Dunno about them being suitable replacements, but yeah they are pretty much indestructible, capable of surviving even nuclear disasters, so one thing's for sure those little creepy crawlies will survive any mass extinction.

    Pika Pika :chu:
     

    Exodrake

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    Other great apes aren't competing with us because our evolutionary path is an extremely niche and specialized one. Look at the awe-inspiring amount of extinct species in the genus Homo. Only one species of the genus remains. Evolutionary paths this specific and specialized leave little to no room for competitors, which is why no human-like species will appear unless the current occupier of that niche disappears first.
     
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  • I guess, primates would be first choice that comes to mind, coz we evolved from them. But that is the problem, we evolved a lot, they didn't.



    Dunno about them being suitable replacements, but yeah they are pretty much indestructible, capable of surviving even nuclear disasters, so one thing's for sure those little creepy crawlies will survive any mass extinction.

    Pika Pika :chu:

    We didn't "evolve" from the other primates in the sense you're thinking of. We are primates and share a common ancestor way back when, but our actual evolutionary path became seperate from all the other living primates millennia ago. We didn't evolve from Chimps, we're related to them. It's this relationship though that gives us very similar bodies and brain structures that would allow them to evolve to fill our environmental niche should we somehow vanish from the Earth.

    As for insects, if you're talking about simple numbers and survivability a vast majority of insect species will survive the same events as cockroaches and have done for eons. In terms of numbers and ability to survive insects have ruled the earth over humans throughout all of humanity's history. But we're talking about creatures that are likely to develop human-esque intelligence here from what I can understand. Insects and the like have tiny little bodies that can only hold tiny little brains. To even begins down a path like ours they would need to get hundreds of times bigger as well as develop significantly more complex brains and nervous systems. Not to mention they'd also need to develop a viable substitute for the human hand. Basically, if you're talking survivability, bugs already rule the Earth but if you're talking filling a similar niche to humans, they never will. There's just too many animals that are far closer to that level for bugs of any sort to ever reach it.
     

    LegendChu

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  • We didn't "evolve" from the other primates in the sense you're thinking of. We are primates and share a common ancestor way back when, but our actual evolutionary path became seperate from all the other living primates millennia ago. We didn't evolve from Chimps, we're related to them. It's this relationship though that gives us very similar bodies and brain structures that would allow them to evolve to fill our environmental niche should we somehow vanish from the Earth.
    As for insects, if you're talking about simple numbers and survivability a vast majority of insect species will survive the same events as cockroaches and have done for eons. In terms of numbers and ability to survive insects have ruled the earth over humans throughout all of humanity's history. But we're talking about creatures that are likely to develop human-esque intelligence here from what I can understand. Insects and the like have tiny little bodies that can only hold tiny little brains. To even begins down a path like ours they would need to get hundreds of times bigger as well as develop significantly more complex brains and nervous systems. Not to mention they'd also need to develop a viable substitute for the human hand. Basically, if you're talking survivability, bugs already rule the Earth but if you're talking filling a similar niche to humans, they never will. There's just too many animals that are far closer to that level for bugs of any sort to ever reach it.

    Thank you for sharing all that knowledge Gimme I'm so humbled (has anyone told you that habit can be a bit irritating sometimes :P)

    But seriously, we can make all the assumptions we want about who will be successors to the human race, if we were to actually go extinct. The truth though is as of now - none!

    Pika Pika :chu:
     
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  • Thank you for sharing all that knowledge Gimme I'm so humbled (has anyone told you that habit can be a bit irritating sometimes :P)

    It wasn't really that much lol, I'm no biologist. As for it being an "irritating habit", this section is literally the place on PC to let that habit loose, so I'm not going to feel perturbed if people don't like it. Deep conversation is what this part of the site is for.

    But seriously, we can make all the assumptions we want about who will be successors to the human race, if we were to actually go extinct. The truth though is as of now - none!

    Pika Pika :chu:

    If you don't want us making assumptions about your topic, don't make the topic? Besides, nobody is saying that these animals will evolve to fill our niche. We're theorising about animals that could should humanity go extinct without the planet going with us.
     

    ShinyUmbreon189

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  • Even if we Humans go extinct, hopefully Humanity doesn't :)

    Pika Pika :chu:

    It would.. Monkeys are the most comparable to us but they don't have the intelligence, beliefs, morals, etc humans acquire. Only humans have the intelligence to communicate like we do. If humans went extinct there's no species on the planet that could replace us whilst keeping "humanity" because they are not human. Animals and plants may share similar traits but their thought process isn't relate-able, their planning out isn't comparable, their beliefs aren't similar, and they don't have the thought process to replicate humans, etc. No other species can duplicate humans, so therefore definitely cannot clone humanity; unless an alien invasion happened shortly afterwards and they happened to be humans, just a more advanced version lol.
     

    Nah

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    I don't think other animals could replace us, but if there was another species like us to come up, it could be possible.
    Hey there. While I appreciate the fact that someone wants to bother posting in here, the threads you've posted in just now are all several months old. Rules state that threads more than like a month old aren't to be posted in (revival rule), so I kinda have to lock these now.

    Topics can always be re-made, so you can if you want to, just for the future please don't bump up old inactive threads (there are occasionally threads that the revival rule does not apply to, like Dear Anonymous or the RT feedback thread, as well as certain others throughout PC).
     
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