Which species has it the easiest?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Meaning time not spending energy as a portion of its life finding and getting food that moves away, not being eaten, not fighting for dominance, not looking for mates or courting them. Playtime is OK, even though hunting, for example, might count as such if you were to ask any animal.

Obviously :dubious: anthropomorphics galore on what the Good Life is for animals, but why not.

Dolce far niente. Momma’s rich, Daddy’s good lookin’… Land of Cockaigne. Just hanging. Playing. Reaching into the hamper for a beer and sandwich.

Canis lupus familiaris? Domesticated cattle, sheep…? Sloths? Elephants?

I think being a bacterium is no bed of roses.

2

Any species that is a pet in America.

3

This is a bit of a cheat, but “17-year cicadas” spend the first 17 years of their lives just grubbing around underground sucking on roots, and then about 4 weeks in a flurry of activity as an adult, doing all their mating and egg-laying and the like.

4

Given that “easiest” is subjective, let’s move this to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

5

Tapeworms.

6

Before Australia was settled I would imagine many of it’s inhabitants found it fairly easy to survive. The Galapogos animals as well.

7

Symbiotic bacteria, perhaps? The kind that cooperate with termites to help them digest cellulose. They simply sit there and multiply to the extent of their environment’s ability to support them.

Exponential growth, with no predators? (Or do they have?)

Sweet deal until you run out of room. (Yoo hoo, humanity!)

8

If the current internet memes are any indication, this is the first time in history anybody has suggested that Australia encourages survival. Unless there was a time before venomous spiders, venomous snakes, venomous jellyfish, and venomous mammals.

9

This is my answer, too.

10

Many species might “have it easy” in terms of guaranteed food supply obtained with minimal effort, but that’s usually balanced against being something else’s prey/host, or having a miniscule chance of leaving any descendants. In the long run, everything just barely survives- or not, in which case it goes extinct.

11

There are insects that spend their entire term of individual existence in stages where they do nothing but eat and sleep in protected environments, then emerge as adults for only a few hours, in which their routine expands to sex with an abundance of willing partners to choose from. Then they roll over, have a cigarette, and die.

12

Crows. Nothing to do but hang out with your buds, harass the occasional raptor, poke idly at roadkill. It’s the life of Riley.

13

They must say happy as a clam for a reason. Lie on the ocean floor and sift water for food. In the right spot, predators are few.

14

George Clooney, et al.

15

Coelacanth, there’s a reason it hasn’t bothered to evolve.

16

Probably the species that produced the fewest offspring - those were the ones that stood very high chance of living to breeding age. Pandas, Kakapos, etc.

17

This is a common misconception - the modern Coelacanth is** just as evolved** as any other fish in the sea. It just retains an old phenotype.

18

I think, among the higher organisms, I’d go with the Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater). Pairing off with a mate for life, lots of good sex, abandon the kids in some other bird’s nest for them to take care of and raise, soaring with the gift of flight, and fly off following the buffalo herds across the beautiful great plains, kicking up abundant seeds and insects for me.

19

Again going for higher organisms I recall watching a documentary that showed a species of African bird-of-prey (possibly a sea eagle) that basically hung around all day and then when it was feeling peckish casually plucked one of the abundant fish from a nearby lake. Ten minutes of hunting tops, the other 23 hours and 50 minutes to do whatever it is eagles do to entertain themselves (surf the internet probably)

20

I don’t get this.