It seems like we’d better get our affairs in order. The future is not looking bright for mankind.
Who, or what, is going to succeed us?
Cockroaches. No matter what disaster you posit, it’s always gonna be the cockroaches.
I vote for Cats.
I’m pretty sure cats are mammals. It will probably be the lizard people.
Cats will survive though, they’ll be off-planet with their servants the humans.
We can’t wait until the last minute 250,000,000 years from now, we have to panic now!
I should have said human descendants. I doubt they’ll be Homo sapiens at that point.
I think we could wait until mid-June 249,999,999.75 years from now, 3 months should be plenty of time to sort it out.
I’m skeptical of North America and Africa colliding. Their current relative motions are separating them, I think?
And I’m also skeptical a supercontinent will doom mammals. In 250 million years, all surviving species will have evolved to survive in hotter climates. (Not because of green house gases, but because of the sun slowly increasing its luminosity.)
Lizard Catroaches
I read another article in Scientific American a few years ago about continental drift. Apparently it’s a cyclical thing, the continents are currently spreading apart, but at some time in the future they will coalesce again.
It’s happened a few times before, and each time it’s accompanied by a mass extinction.
Will they still be mammals? Any more than birds are still dinosaurs?
Who knows? If we survive, we’ll probably be trans-human but still basically human except those that have become data-transfers. Our current evolution is very different already from natural selection.
Who knows what we’ll breed cats to be.
As to dogs, the border collies are already bred for intelligence and endurance. Can you imagine what they’ll be like in 300 more years, never mid 3000 or 3 million?
Yes. But only because I’ve read my Clifford Simak.
I haven’t read that since High School, over 40 years ago. I can’t even remember that one at all.
Uplifted dogs are our successor species after we’re mostly extinct.
That and robots and ants.
I don’t know, raccoons seem to be well on their way to reutilizing our junk and trash. They might replace us.
But AIs and Robots are a great bet.
That cockroach thing is a myth: they need high humidity and can’t thrive in cold climates. In the OPs scenario the cold would not be the problem, but the aridity would do them in. Good!
They surely like it hot. Them and the very cute fennec fox, which would be my candidate. Both cats and fennecs would need prey, of course. Perhaps they would cyclically feast on each other.
And bats. A pet monster of mine, big as a Quetzalcoatlus by then. Don’t worry, evolution will provide.
Yikes. Now I’m worried.
Like this?
