# All humans vanish. How many other species die? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 25, 2015, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924 "2015-03-25T04:48:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/21 "2015-03-25T07:45:00Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Three kinds of lice are going to lose their favorite meal. Maybe they’ll find other hosts. Like I said, it’d doubtful. They’re pretty well-adapted to their human hosts - I don’t know if other animals (especially ones convenient to migrate to) have the same anatomical niches for them _and_ the lack of competition from already-well-suited species on those hosts. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/22 "2015-03-25T07:58:57Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Like I said, it’d doubtful. They’re pretty well-adapted to their human hosts - I don’t know if other animals (especially ones convenient to migrate to) have the same anatomical niches for them _and_ the lack of competition from already-well-suited species on those hosts. Sorry, didn’t see the earlier posts. I suppose you are right, it would take some fortuitous circumstances for the lice to find a host and then thrive. They’re picky enough to care about what part of the human body to live on much less finding a new species of host suitable. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/23 "2015-03-25T09:45:52Z")
Guys, guys, guys! Bed Bugs. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/24 "2015-03-25T13:15:01Z")
They’re not going to go extinct because we still have some in the wild, but I would imagine all those goldfish in aquariums would have a pretty rough time of it. ---
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/25 "2015-03-25T13:25:38Z")
I’d guess thoroughbred horses and a variety of specialist dogs would die-out at once. They all require human intervention to give birth. Probably most warmbloods will go as well. ---
**Author:** ![Elemenopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/26 "2015-03-25T13:34:17Z")
Somehow the thought of all the cattle going free-range, and maybe reverting back to something like buffalo ([aurochs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs)) tickles me. I read a [book](http://www.amazon.com/Steak-Search-Worlds-Tastiest-Piece/dp/0143119389)about the beef industry and apparently some mad-scientist farmer has claimed to have bred his cows back to being aurochs. Cool. (I just saw that this has been brought up already, but maybe y’all didn’t know about the intentional auroch-breeding, so I’ll leave it. The book I linked is a fun one, btw.) I wonder about certain scavengers like rats and pigeons in the cities. I’m sure they would find another niche, but I bet there would be a lot fewer of them. Hmm, what about more domesticated rodents like gerbils and hamsters? Do they still exist in the wild? There was a theory going around that one of those breeds may have spread one of the great Plagues in Europe, as opposed to rats, but I’ve never seen a wild gerbil in America. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/27 "2015-03-25T13:47:05Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Feral cattle are a significant problem in places such as Australia, Indonesia and Argentina. They aren’t going to become extinct. > > Oddly, feral cattle are one of the main threats to the existence of the banteng in Indonesia. So without human control, that species may actually be driven to extinction in that region by the feral animals. Ironically, a stable feral population will continue to exist in Australia. Beyond that, the Longhorn breed of cattle is primarily derived from feral descendants of Spanish cattle brought over in the 15th and 16th centuries, and left feral for 300 or so years. So there’s ample precedent for domesticated cattle developing aurochs-like traits after a feral spell. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/28 "2015-03-25T14:38:44Z")
> [@SeaDragonTattoo](#): > > Guys, guys, guys! > > Bed Bugs. The common bed bug, while it prefers human blood, can survive on other hosts. The current infestation in certain places is believed to have originated from a reservoir in poultry. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/29 "2015-03-25T17:05:02Z")
The California Condor will finally go to join the Mastodon. Most of the weird and useless breeds of dogs and cats will go. Of the IUCN Red List of ‘extinct in the wild’ species: Père David’s deer\* might well survive and maybe the scimitar oryx - not really "‘extinct in the wild’ imho, since there are thousands who have been re-introduced and would likely be OK f humans stopped eating them. Many “protected species” are being mostly protected from humans, so they will be fine.OTOH, many are also protected from feral cats/rats, and etc, so that could be a issue. The rat, the Raven, the coyote, the pigeon and the falcon have all adapted well to living with humans. Altho they certainly wont go extinct (maybe the falcon) they will struggle a bit. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/30 "2015-03-25T17:24:13Z")
‘Biota’ is just some qualified grouping of all life, be it flora, fauna, or anything else. You could speak of the ‘biota of the tundra’ or ‘Cretaceous biota’ or, in this case, ‘human-dependent biota’. I take it you were meaning to describe everything that lives in or on the human body, and that does include plenty of fauna. For the third part, are you thinking of ‘ethogram’? ---
**Author:** ![FasterThanMeerkats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/278dde/32.png) [@FasterThanMeerkats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FasterThanMeerkats)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/31 "2015-03-25T17:57:49Z")
I’m going to guess miniature horses, mainly because they’ll get pushed out of the lunch line by the bigger ones. Please disprove this by pointing me to the Discovery video of the wild miniature mustang herds.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/32 "2015-03-25T18:33:13Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I started thinking about this when looking at pugs, a dog which, apparently, cannot be born except by Caesarian. This litter of pug puppies begs to differ with you: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1hvSUEBAbU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1hvSUEBAbU) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/33 "2015-03-25T19:56:15Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > ‘Biota’ is just some qualified grouping of all life, be it flora, fauna, or anything else. You could speak of the ‘biota of the tundra’ or ‘Cretaceous biota’ or, in this case, ‘human-dependent biota’. I take it you were meaning to describe everything that lives in or on the human body, and that does include plenty of fauna… Yes, of my knowledge of the many many living species in the human body (how many? \), I figured a tapeworm, my favorite, is fauna, but I couldn’t remember if bacteria and other industrious bugs in our gut get a different group noun along the same lines. But now that I think of it people refer to “gut flora” all the time. > [@](#): > > …For the third part, are you thinking of ‘ethogram’? I wasn’t :), and don’t quite get the meaning of “ethogram”: sounds like a unit portion of something to do with ethology. Or a unit of ethical fucks I might give, to use a current Internet meme. Also, I realized, by wondering if there was a word like “ethosystem,” my premise was wrong to begin with, given OP question: an “ecosystem” comprises fauna; “ethology” refers particularly to behavior, which of course is essential to an animal’s identity/stability relating to the environment of flora and fauna, but is covered in “ecosystem,” at least by my understanding. > [@MrDibble](#): > > …Cows are extinct in the wild and I don’t see them surviving predation well enough to breed back to an Aurochs-like form… > > > [@Elemenopy](#): > > > > Somehow the thought of all the cattle going free-range, and maybe reverting back to something like buffalo ([aurochs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs)) tickles me. I read a [book](http://www.amazon.com/Steak-Search-Worlds-Tastiest-Piece/dp/0143119389)about the beef industry and apparently some mad-scientist farmer has claimed to have bred his cows back to being aurochs. Cool. > > > > (I just saw that this has been brought up already, but maybe y’all didn’t know about the intentional auroch-breeding, so I’ll leave it. The book I linked is a fun one, btw.) > > … The word “aurochs” has bewitched me from the first (bewitching, as you’ll see) time I saw it used, and continued for years even before I narrowed it down and found its specific meaning of a certain kind of (extinct) animal. It took its place next to “Roc,”-- by assonance as well, it now occurs to me–as symbol and metaphor. Here’s where I first saw it, the final image of an author I think to be a close second only to Joyce in English. It is from the book that begins with: Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. …And ends with I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/34 "2015-03-25T19:59:53Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Oddly, feral cattle are one of the main threats to the existence of the banteng in Indonesia. So without human control, that species may actually be driven to extinction in that region by the feral animals. Ironically, a stable feral population will continue to exist in Australia. This kind of thinking was actually my first reaction to the question. It’s not the domesticated animals that are particularly likely to go extinct (at the species level, even if particular breeds are doomed). It’s that humans will no longer be around to try to stop or slow the spread of feral populations of previously domesticated animals. Feral cats in particular… if they go extinct at all, it will be a result of being so successful that they run out of food. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/35 "2015-03-25T20:24:58Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > I’d guess thoroughbred horses and a variety of specialist dogs would die-out at once. They all require human intervention to give birth. > > Probably most warmbloods will go as well. The horses part is nonsense! Both thoroughbred and warmblood mares give birth just fine, the vst majority unaided. They are often watched over by someone, and vet-checked the next morning, but that’s just a sensible precaution for a foal worth thousands of dollars, not a requirement. Possibly you’re thinking of the breeding of these horses. Shipping them thousands of miles, or even between continents to cross the best bloodlines would end when humans end, but most would just breed naturally with nearby horses. (And it’s all natural breeding, no artificial insemination in this breed.) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/36 "2015-03-25T20:32:32Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > ‘Biota’ is just some qualified grouping of all life, be it flora, fauna, or anything else. You could speak of the ‘biota of the tundra’ or ‘Cretaceous biota’ or, in this case, ‘human-dependent biota’. I take it you were meaning to describe everything that lives in or on the human body, and that does include plenty of fauna… > > > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > > > Yes, of my knowledge of the many many living species in the human body (how many? \), I figured a tapeworm, my favorite, is fauna, but I couldn’t remember if bacteria and other industrious bugs in our gut get a different group noun along the same lines. > > > > But now that I think of it people refer to “gut flora” all the time… Hmmm…Human microbiota. Aka, Biota, aka biota (here, in human) with microfauna–apparently a neologism–as well as/as opposed to bacteria, fungi, and archaea, aka microflora. From that Wik, with cite, “500-1000 species of bacteria live in the human gut.” Plus a few in eyes, skin, etc. So how many of those will go? _E. coli_ can hang their hat anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![moldmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee59a6/32.png) [@moldmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moldmonkey)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/37 "2015-03-25T21:00:50Z")
Domestic cattle would survive anywhere water sources don’t freeze over for long or snow doesn’t cover the grass. Cattle somehow lost the ability to eat snow for moisture or move snow away to get access to the grass underneath. Horses paw and buffalo uses their heads to move snow. They would probably revert to longhorn type (there were/are other feral cattle breeds in the US) or something that showed lots of Brahma influence. Horses go feral easily. They can be a problem on my Fathers ranch. Sheep are incredibly stupid, almost seem to have a death wish, and dogs/coyotes/wolves would wipe them out easily. Goats and pigs are smart and tough. Both would do fine. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/38 "2015-03-25T23:46:38Z")
Axolotls are apparently extinct in the wild and exist now only in captivity. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/39 "2015-03-26T00:45:19Z")
People joke about cockroaches being the winners in a nuclear war but the reality is the disappearance of humans would be followed by a massive cockroach die-off. They’re a tropical species and the only reason they survive around the world is because we provide them with a year-round heated environment. If humans disappeared and the heat went out, all of the cockroaches outside of their original tropical range would die in their first winter. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924/40 "2015-03-26T01:05:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > People joke about cockroaches being the winners in a nuclear war but the reality is the disappearance of humans would be followed by a massive cockroach die-off. They’re a tropical species and the only reason they survive around the world is because we provide them with a year-round heated environment. If humans disappeared and the heat went out, all of the cockroaches outside of their original tropical range would die in their first winter. Really? Why would a cockroach in Singapore or Rio die in their first winter? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-humans-vanish-how-many-other-species-die/715924.md?page=3)