Some of you might have read the book Life After Man, which postulates what creatures might evolve millions of years in the future after humanity is gone. Some of the creatures struck me as plausible (the rat-descended Phalanx for example), others less so. What imaginative but plausible creatures do you imagine could come about as the result of alternate or future evolution?
My contribution: the Ghouls, carrion-monkeys that travel in troops and while nasty aren’t usually dangerous- unless you’re unlucky enough to be sick or wounded and helpless.
Actually a lot of cockroaches would die. They’re naturally a tropical species that can’t handle cold weather. The only reason they survive temperate climates is because humans are around to provide a year-round warm shelter. If we died and the heat went out, the cockroaches would all join us the first winter.
Four legged birds. They could be descended from the modern Hoatzin, which has clawed wings when young. I imagine they would mostly be tree climbers.
A similar creature: Wingless Bats. Although if it does happen it would more likely be descended from fruit bats, I’m seeing more of a monkey-like creature that hunts using sonar.
Given the number of large dogs in society today, the number of wolves around, and their ability to interbreed back to more and more wolflike strains: I think wolves are the wolves of the future.
I doubt it. If we are talking about a post human earth, it will be the adaptable species that survive long enough to evolve into replacement niche species. Dogs are remarkably variable, but limited in diet. I think it will be the omnivores that survive that next wave of extinction. I could see a smaller variety of dog go back to being insectivores/ rodent specialists though. Hogs already have the size, prolific breeding nature, and the ability to consume and thrive on an extremely varied diet. They will out compete the dogs once food resources become scarce in the big game dept.
I think the timing of this will be varied. Some terrier species will thrive as you say on rodents and more, but larger dogs may interbreed, may not. The longer leg, thicker skined variety may evolve into pack dogs, running down larger game - but the labradoodles of the world will surly perish.
In major extinction events the megafauna that tends to survive is either small or lives around rivers (q.v. crocodiles, which have survived more than one such event), so I’ll go for beavers, voles, otters, capybara, and the like being the progenitors of the next master species.
