Humans are perfecter, and do their one thing better than other animals do their one thing or many things. Can’t catch a mouse. I have a cat for that. Can’t outrun a gazelle? Let me introduce you to my children the wolves. Bears are afraid of dog bites.
The other day I was looking at a domestic cat on near the door of a new house and it occurred to me that the domestic moggy is one of the few things in the human world that’s probably changed very little in hundreds of years. We ourselves have changed in knowledge, language, culture, dogs have been bred into various unnatural forms, our homes, roads, everything physical about our civilization has changed dramatically, but the cat’s a constant .
Planet of the Squirrels
Something tells me that if humans get wiped out, those tree rats will form the next intelligent civilization.
Think of it, the hand dexterity, the climbing ability, lightening fast reflexes, small size and vegan diet.
Nope. I’d like to think it would be the Eastern Gray Squirrel, which has all of the traits you mention, but is too short-lived. I think it would be the raccoon, which is the smartest animal I’ve ever encountered. My wife hates them, and though one almost killed me (rabies, long story), I find them fascinating, and tend to treat them more kindly than my wife does. And I’ve video recorded them doing things that one would think only humans could do. Like finding a human-devised obstacle they couldn’t overcome, and starting to sulk away in frustration – only to pause for a thoughtful moment, and then perform an act of deliberate vandalism by way of revenge.
BTW, when it comes to squirrels, I find them amazingly intelligent. Plus, they can do something even most humans can’t: if you are standing in front of one that knows that you feed it nuts, you can point to a nut on the ground several feet to the side of both of you and it will immediately follow the point and spot the nut, When you point at something in front of a cat, it just looks at the end of your finger. Most people do the same thing.
“Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember
The time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again”
Don’t know why the words to Grizabella’s Song from Cats makes me sad, but they do.
Cat’s domestication of humans has allowed them to occupy six of the seven continents (I haven’t heard of cats in Antarctica) which places them on par with only two other species, humans and dogs.
I was going to mention house mice (mus musculus) in this regard. I was surprised to find out wood mice never colonized west of Iceland. My back yard has field mice and deer mice, and these little black things called “country rats” (haven’t look up the binomial). There’s a large house mouse population here where properties are around 10 acres. Yesterday, my cat caught one and I got a second one a few minutes later by throwing a full half liter bottle from 20 feet away (full length of the railway kitchen). My cat seemed amazed.
The little black things are probably rattus rattus, a good bit smaller than rattus norvegicus.
Cat behavior is extremely conserved, too. Among the first lineages to branch off millions of years ago were tigers and snow leopards. Having watched a popular Youtube snow leopard, I noticed it shares a lot of traits with house cats. It likes to shred paper towels, sit in lofty perches, and when possible lay across laptops or PC keyboards. So cats had evolved the keyboard behavior millions of years before humans invented keyboards. More disturbingly for something that hunts yaks and deer, it can use door knobs with ease.
Humans are perfecter, and do their one thing better than other animals do their one thing or many things. Can’t catch a mouse. I have a cat for that. Can’t outrun a gazelle? Let me introduce you to my children the wolves. Bears are afraid of dog bites.
The other day I was looking at a domestic cat on near the door of a new house and it occurred to me that the domestic moggy is one of the few things in the human world that’s probably changed very little in hundreds of years. We ourselves have changed in knowledge, language, culture, dogs have been bred into various unnatural forms, our homes, roads, everything physical about our civilization has changed dramatically, but the cat’s a constant .
Planet of the Squirrels
Something tells me that if humans get wiped out, those tree rats will form the next intelligent civilization.
Think of it, the hand dexterity, the climbing ability, lightening fast reflexes, small size and vegan diet.
Nope. I’d like to think it would be the Eastern Gray Squirrel, which has all of the traits you mention, but is too short-lived. I think it would be the raccoon, which is the smartest animal I’ve ever encountered. My wife hates them, and though one almost killed me (rabies, long story), I find them fascinating, and tend to treat them more kindly than my wife does. And I’ve video recorded them doing things that one would think only humans could do. Like finding a human-devised obstacle they couldn’t overcome, and starting to sulk away in frustration – only to pause for a thoughtful moment, and then perform an act of deliberate vandalism by way of revenge.
BTW, when it comes to squirrels, I find them amazingly intelligent. Plus, they can do something even most humans can’t: if you are standing in front of one that knows that you feed it nuts, you can point to a nut on the ground several feet to the side of both of you and it will immediately follow the point and spot the nut, When you point at something in front of a cat, it just looks at the end of your finger. Most people do the same thing.
“Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember
The time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again”
Don’t know why the words to Grizabella’s Song from Cats makes me sad, but they do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqx3LDawgS8&t=57s
Cat’s domestication of humans has allowed them to occupy six of the seven continents (I haven’t heard of cats in Antarctica) which places them on par with only two other species, humans and dogs.
Cattle, goats, chickens, goldfish, horses, guinea pigs, rats, mice …
… And house sparrow.
I was going to mention house mice (mus musculus) in this regard. I was surprised to find out wood mice never colonized west of Iceland. My back yard has field mice and deer mice, and these little black things called “country rats” (haven’t look up the binomial). There’s a large house mouse population here where properties are around 10 acres. Yesterday, my cat caught one and I got a second one a few minutes later by throwing a full half liter bottle from 20 feet away (full length of the railway kitchen). My cat seemed amazed.
The little black things are probably rattus rattus, a good bit smaller than rattus norvegicus.
Cat behavior is extremely conserved, too. Among the first lineages to branch off millions of years ago were tigers and snow leopards. Having watched a popular Youtube snow leopard, I noticed it shares a lot of traits with house cats. It likes to shred paper towels, sit in lofty perches, and when possible lay across laptops or PC keyboards. So cats had evolved the keyboard behavior millions of years before humans invented keyboards. More disturbingly for something that hunts yaks and deer, it can use door knobs with ease.