Mars

E.L.A. (Mr. Michaud)

17/3/23

Mr. Michaud

What Animal Will Take Over When Humans go

Extinct?

With global warming being worse than ever, and the threat of nuclear war looming over our

heads, it’s pretty likely that humans are on their way out. That raises the question “what will the

next dominant species be when we’re gone?”. There are many intelligent species that could take our

place, so witch one will reign supreme? For the proposes of this essay, we're just going to assume

humans just disappear one day, as any other means of extinction could give one species an

advantage over others. Once I figure out for certain what animal will become the next dominant

race, I’ll use what we know about them to speculate about what their culture may be like.

What Species Are Eligible?

There’s a lot of animals in the world (about 7.7 million), so I’ll take the liberty of choosing

which ones will be considered for this essay.

 First off; the octopus. They’ve been reported to be extremely intelligent by marine biologists

and aquarium caretakers alike. Octopuses are able to solve problems, play games, and one species

has even been recorded to walk and use shells as a portable hiding spot.

Secondly; ravens. There are endless accounts of people becoming friends with corvids,

trading them shiny objects for food, making regular feeding schedules, and more. One scientist even

says that they have intelligence equivalent to a 7-year-old child’s. They also have excellent

memories and have proven themselves to be very adaptive.

Last of all; elephants. Known for being the largest land animal, these guys show great

amounts of empathy, even mourning family members who’ve passed away. Similar to ravens, they

have amazing memories, and have been seen to hold grudges. One elephant trampled a woman to

death, then came to her funeral to throw her body into the air.

Which One Will Really Become the Next Dominant Species?

So, octopuses, ravens, and elephants are the animals that I think could become the “next

human”, but which one will truly become dominant? I’ll just cut to the chase here and say I’m fairly

certain that ravens are the most likely to develop our level of intelligence, maybe even surpass it if

they’re given enough time.

While octopuses are excellent puzzle solvers and strategists, most species are non-social,

meaning that they’d have a hard time forming societies where they could truly thrive like humans.

Additionally, octopuses have short life spans, only about 5 years in captivity.

Elephants are known for being smart, strong and highly social, but they have one major issue;

their 22-month long gestation period. This causes issues mainly because there’s only around
455,000 of them left, so getting up to numbers where they could take over the planet before ravens

could is unlikely.

Ravens, Huh?

Usually, this is the part where I’d figure out which species of the chosen animal would come

out on top, but since species of raven aren’t notably different from each other, I’ll go over why I

picked ravens in more detail. First of all, the Raven population is insanely high (around 8.7 million

as of 2011 and its presumably increasing), so they’d have no problem staying alive and keeping the

gene pool strong. They’re also fairly big, being about 2.1 feet tall and having a wingspan of up to 4

feet. Furthermore, they don’t have many natural predators, and the ones they do have usually only

go after their eggs. To top it off, they have a relatively high protein diet, mostly consisting of

scavenged meat. They also use their wits to steal other birds' eggs. What I'm saying is that they have

high chances of survival, and they have good diets, which is thought to have helped increase

humans’ intelligence to what it is today.

What Could Their Culture Look Like?

We’ve decided that ravens will rule the world once humans leave, so let’s hypothesise about

what their cultures and communities may be like when they evolve. To keep this part structured, I’ll

look at these 3 aspects of culture: social customs, geography, and language

Social Customs: Ravens usually mate for life, and they rarely cheat or divorce. They also

hunt in groups when times are tough, like in the winter or during a drought. So, we can gather that it
would be custom for them to have life-long relationships and help each other during hard times,

similar to us.

Geography: Ravens can be found anywhere from the coast to the mountains, as long as they

have a place to nest up high. This means that evolved ravens would make their homes high up, or at

least have an affinity for heights. Current ravens are known for using tools, so we can assume that

evolved ravens use their geography to craft tools from things like rocks and sticks.

Language: As ravens evolve, they’re probably going to need more noises than their signature

“caw caw caw”. Current day ravens use body language such as wing and beak movements as well

as their classic call to communicate, so we can infer that would carry over to their evolved

ancestors. It's hard to directly pinpoint what their languages might be like, since they can be so

diverse, but I can confidently say that at least a few of them will sound like raven calls.

Conclusion

I’ve decided that ravens are most likely to take over the planet once humans die out, but

obviously that’s not guaranteed to happen. Apes are a huge contender, but honestly they’d be boring

to write about, so I didn’t include them in the paper. Although, it’d be a close call for dominance if

they both had the chance to evolve again. But out of the animals I did pick, ravens are definitely the

most likely. Their chances for survival are huge, and in a safe environment, they can live up to 60

years! Octopuses and elephants are strong competitors, but ravens have the edge in almost every

category.
Sources: scienceabc.com, (99) A Sneaky Coconut Octopus Uses Tools to Snatch a Crab 🦀,

backtobirds.com, thoughtco.com, rd.com, kidadl.com, nationalbird.canadiangeographic.ca,

birdfact.com, animalbehaviorcorner.com, animalqueries.com,