Owl
Dragonfly
Ant
Bee
Flowers
Butterfly
Alligators
Dolphin
Elephant
Beaver
Giraffe
Ostrich
Cheetah
Salmon
Bald eagle
Grizzly bear
Stork
Chimpanzee
50,000,000 BC- 400,000 BC
Owl (50,000,000 BC)
I was born a wise solitary hooting night bird predator. We were all carnivorous and lived mainly on a diet of insects and small rodents such as mice, rats and hares. Some of us were specifically adapted to hunt fish. We lived everywhere except Antarctica and Greenland and some remote islands. Some of us were as small as 13.5cm and some as big as 70cm with a wing span of 2m.
some music?...
We were very different from most birds of prey. While most had eyes on the sides of their head, we had forward facing larger than normal eyes that gave us stereoscopic 3D vision with sense of depth perception necessary for low-light hunting. Our eyes were fixed in their sockets, just like in all other birds, so we had to turn our entire head to change views. We were able to rotate our heads and necks as much as 270 degrees. We were farsighted and were unable to see clearly anything within a few centimeters of our eyes. Thank to that, our far vision, particularly in low light, was exceptionally good.
Not all of us hunted at night. Some were active at the twilight hours of dawn or dusk. Much of our hunting strategy depended on stealth and surprise. We had at least two adaptations that aided us in achieving stealth. First, the dull coloration of our feathers made us almost invisible under certain conditions. Second, the serrated edge on the leading edge of our larger than normal feathers muffled our wing beats. The surface of our feathers was covered with a velvety structure that absorbed the sound of our wing moving, making our flights practically silent. We had specialized hearing functions and ear shapes that also aided in hunting. We could detect even the slightest movement of our prey and pinpoint their location.
I was a very small owl and my only predators were owls who were larger than me. I didn't live very long before I was caught, killed and eaten by a big owl.
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Dragonfly
Not all of us hunted at night. Some were active at the twilight hours of dawn or dusk. Much of our hunting strategy depended on stealth and surprise. We had at least two adaptations that aided us in achieving stealth. First, the dull coloration of our feathers made us almost invisible under certain conditions. Second, the serrated edge on the leading edge of our larger than normal feathers muffled our wing beats. The surface of our feathers was covered with a velvety structure that absorbed the sound of our wing moving, making our flights practically silent. We had specialized hearing functions and ear shapes that also aided in hunting. We could detect even the slightest movement of our prey and pinpoint their location.
I was a very small owl and my only predators were owls who were larger than me. I didn't live very long before I was caught, killed and eaten by a big owl.
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Dragonfly
I was born with large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, and an elongated body. I could not walk very well but was one of the fastest flying insects in the world, being able to reach nearly 100 km/h. I could propel myself in 6 directions; upward, downward, forward, back, and side to side. We lived around marshes, lakes, ponds, streams, and wetlands because our larvae, known as "nymphs", were aquatic. My favorite food was mosquitoes and other small insects. I not only hunted, but was also hunted. I was eaten by birds, lizards, frogs, spiders, fish, water bugs, and even other large dragonflies.
Once mature, the males established a territory from which they chased out other males and produced packets of sperm. With their sperm packs filled, they flew out and grasped the heads of females with their clasping penises. Penises could fit only in heads of females of the same species. Once the males grasped a female, they flew together in tandem for some time. Males flew while females rested. After some time, females reached the tips of their abdomen below their bodies and grasped the pack of sperm the males had deposited. During this process, called "the wheel formation", the two lovers flying up in the clouds posed making a heart-shaped form. The two stayed in this formation for upwards of 15 minutes before the females left the males who remained close by. Then the ladies laid their eggs in or near water often on floating plants. The eggs hatched into nymphs who stayed under water breathing thru gills they had in their rectum. They were able to rapidly propel themselves by suddenly expelling water through the anus, like a wet fart. The nymphs stayed nymphs for up to 5 years.
When the larva was ready to metamorphose into an adult, it climbed up a reed and started breathing. The skin split behind the head and the adult dragonfly crawled out, pumped up its wings, and flew off to feed on flies for the next 5 or 6 months until they died.
Closely related to wasps and bees, I was born a miner of tunnels. The plants on land relied on our tunnels to aerate the soils they lived in. We lived everywhere on Earth except for Antarctica and a few remote and inhospitable islands. We formed 20% of the terrestrial animal biomass. Our success in so many environments was attributed to our social organization and our ability to modify habitats, tap resources, and defend ourselves. Like the human race who evolved many millions of years after us, we practiced division of labor. We were able to solve complex problems, communicated with each other and taught others the skills we learned.
I lived in a single mom family called a "colony". We treated our mom like a queen. I had about a million sterile wingless sisters called "workers" who worked all their lives. They dug tunnels to expand our nest. They collected and carried food that they foraged from up to 200 meters away to feed all of us. They cut, carried and chewed leaves to make beds for the mushrooms they cultivated and harvested. Like chambermaids, the smaller ones kept us and our nest clean. Like soldiers, the bigger ones protect our nest. Our nest was a series of tunnels reaching several meters deep underground. I and my brothers were called "drones". We had wings but we never went out to fly. We did nothing all our lives but eat, sleep and wait for our one night stand when we flew out for the very first and very last time to make love and mate.
A few of my virgin sisters were selected and fed special food so that they could grow wings and produce eggs and could one day become "queens". They were like Cinderella, except they didn't have to do any work. Like us drones, all they did was to wait for that special night of love. Our worker sisters and those from the other neighboring families reserved a meeting place for us. When that long awaited day finally arrived, we started to get ready for our "nuptial flight". My brothers and I were the first to fly out and to look for and to find that common mating ground. Farting as we flew, we left a trail of our perfume behind so that our Cinderella sisters could follow when they were finally ready. It was an easy to find landmark and we met the horny males from the other neighboring colonies for the very first time. We were all so excited. Then the ladies finally arrived. Most of the ladies mated with just one male from one of the neighboring colonies, but some mated with as many as ten or more. They collected and stored sperm from us drones to fertilize their eggs at a later time. Right after the males ejaculated their sperm, they exploded and died. Talk about an orgasm. Once they had enough, they flew off to find a suitable place to begin their own nest and their own colony. Their wings broke off and they began to lay and care for their eggs, selectively fertilizing some and leaving others unfertilized.
All the eggs eventually hatched into sons and daughters. Eggs that were not fertilized hatched into male sperm producers. Eggs that were fertilized hatched into female workers. The first workers to hatch were weaker and smaller than those hatching later and they began to serve the colony immediately. They enlarged the nest, carried food, and cared for the other eggs. Our family was considered a "super-organism" because we operated as a unified entity like one single organism
We communicated with each other using pheromones, sounds, and touch. Like other insects, we perceived smells with our long, thin and flexible antennae that provided information about the direction and intensity of scents. Whenever we found food and returned to the nest, we left pheromone trails that the other ants followed. Successful trails were followed by more ants, reinforcing them and gradually identifying the best path that was democratically voted on by smell. A crushed ant emitted an alarm pheromone that sent nearby ants into "attack" frenzy. Some species even used "propaganda pheromones" to confuse enemy ants to fight among themselves. Some ants produced sounds by rubbing together certain body parts.
We attacked and defended ourselves by biting and by stinging, often injecting or spraying aggressive and corrosive chemicals such as formic acid. Some were able to snap shut their jaws faster than any other animal. They used their jaws as a catapult to eject intruders or to fling themselves backward to escape a threat. When our nest flooded during heavy rains, some drank the water inside the nest and excreted it outside. They were called the pee brigade. Some colonies when they were too few to feed themselves, captured eggs or larvae of other colonies and raise them up as slaves.
We herded caterpillars of some butterflies like they were cows. They were led to feeding areas in the daytime and brought inside the nest at night. The caterpillars had a gland which secreted honeydew when we massaged it. Some caterpillars that evolved to eat ants secreted a pheromone that smelled just like our own larvae. Like Trojan horses, we carried them into our nest where they eventually feasted on our larvae. Some plants in fire-prone grasslands were particularly dependent on us for their survival because we dispersed their seeds and transported them to safety below ground.
By the time man evolved and learned how to count, the total number of ants alive in the world at any one time was about ten quadrillion. Written out in numbers, that was 10,000,000,000,000,000. That made the total biomass of all the ants in the world approximately equal to about the total biomass of 6 billion people. While my mom lived for up to 30 years, and my workers sisters lived for up to 3 years, I and my brothers and our Cinderella sisters had a short life. About 6 weeks after I was born, I was finally called on my nuptial flight. I found a mate and when I ejaculated my sperm into her, I exploded in an orgasm and died just like all the other drones. It was wonderful.
Closely related to wasps and ants I was born a miner of flowers. We lived on every continent except Antarctica. Some of us were as small as 2mm and some were as big as 4cm. When flowering plants evolved on land, they relied on us to pollinate their flowers. 120 million years later when other animals and man evolved, they relied on us for their food supply which depended on pollinated plants. We fed on nectar, the plant's sugar-rich liquid, to get our energy, and on pollen, the plant's sperm, to get our protein and nutrients. We had two pairs of wings to fly to the flowers, a long tongue to get the nectar and a fury body to carry the pollen. Pollen and nectar were combined together and stored in our 6-sided cells that we made of wax and deposited our eggs inside.
Finding and mining flowers was a dangerous occupation. Many of us were eaten by birds on our way to the flowers. Many assassin bugs and crab spiders hid in them and captured us. Insecticides used on blooming plants killed many of us, either directly by poisoning us, or by drugging us and making us too drunk to return and find our hives again. We told our fellow bees with a dance whenever we found flowers to pollinate. We could tell them the direction and the distance to the flowers. Our mother queen laid 2000 eggs per day. We were social insects and lived in colonies just like ants. Our division of labor and our sex lives were very similar to those of ants.
Unlike ants, we produced some very interesting products. One was "beeswax" that we used to construct our hives with. We produced "honey" from the nectar we gathered and used it to fill our hives so that our eggs would have nutrients for growing. We produced "propolis" that we made from the resin of tree buds and sap flows. We used it to mummify any animals that died in our hives so that they wouldn't rot, stink and be harmful. We also used propolis to seal and protect our hive from harmful bacteria. "Royal jelly" was a secretion from the females that we fed to our mother queen. Selected females who were fed this wonderful rich substance turned into Cinderella virgin queens who stopped work to be fed, cleaned and taken care of, just like our brother drones were. We prepared these Cinderellas and their brothers for their one night stand of lovemaking that we called the "nuptial flight".
Once ants were digging tunnels that aerated the earth and bees were flying around ready to pollinate us, we were ready to spread around the earth. I was born a flowering plant and had flowers, fruits, seeds, roots, and a vascular system to transport water.
Like humans, flowers had two sexes, males and females, with two different kinds of reproductive organs. Males produced pollen, and females produced eggs. Pollen fertilized the eggs which then developed into fruit containing seeds.
Flowers attracted bees, bees carried pollen, pollen fertilized eggs, eggs grew fruit with seeds, fruit attracted animals, animals ate the fruit and dispersed the seeds, seeds grew plants, plants grew flowers and the life-cycle repeated.
Fruits provided seeds with protection, helped to disseminate them and promoted them to germinate. Fruits came in all shapes, sizes and coverings. From the smallest berries of the lowest bushes to the largest cones of the tallest trees like the redwoods who grew up to 100m high and lived 3000 years. Some fruits were soft and sweet, while others were bitter and others were hard nuts to crack.
I was born a magician, able to transform myself from a slow crawling worm-like caterpillar into a large fast flying butterfly. I started out as an egg lined with a thin coating of wax to prevent me from drying out. I had a number of tiny funnel-shaped openings at one end to allow sperm to enter and fertilize me. I was fixed to a leaf with special fast hardening glue.
Then I turned into a larva called a caterpillar searching and eating plant leaves practically all my time. Some ants thought I was a cow and milked me for my honeydew. They took care of me bringing me inside whenever it rained. As a caterpillar I could inflate my head to appear snake-like and had false eye-spots to enhance this effect. I could also fart out foul-smelling chemicals like a skunk did when I needed to defend myself. I also stored toxic substances from the plants I ate to make myself unpalatable to birds and other predators. So that the birds would leave me alone, I advertised my toxicity with bright red, orange, black or white warning colors that the birds recognized. Then I wrapped myself into a cocoon and waited until I came out as a magnificent adult butterfly. We lived only a few weeks.
As a butterfly I was active during the day and slept all night. I had large, brightly colored wings, and I had a conspicuous, fluttering flight. I was very talented at changing. I could mimic other animals and even change my colors when I needed to in order to protect me from other animals like the birds who wanted to eat me. I didn't eat but only drank nectar, the sugar-rich liquid produced by flowers. I had very sensitive antennae to sense the air for wind and scents. My senses of smell, sight and sound were so well developed that I was able to find mates of the opposite sex by smelling, seeing and hearing them as they were fluttering by and making their clicking sounds. I migrated to places more than 4000 km using the sun to navigate and orient myself.
I was very lucky that before I died I was able to find a beautiful mate with eggs that I could fertilize. A female released her perfume that I was able to smell a kilometer away. I was able to track her down and I flapped my wings extremely fast and release a cloud of tiny scales right above her antennae. That turned her on so much that she was willing to have me. We linked our abdomens tail to tail. My sperm-producing organs, located in my stomach opened up and clamp her abdomen. Then my penis entered her and I deposited my sperm into her, fertilizing her eggs. We did this all while we were high, fluttering around. We both felt like we were on cloud 9. She laid her eggs on a variety of different plants which provided them food when they hatched.
Out of the nearly 100 eggs that a female laid in her lifetime, only about 2 percent survived. The egg stage was the first stage of life for us. We hatched as larva called caterpillars. We dined on the leaves where we built up energy and body-building nutrients. Once we had grown to our fullest capacity, we created a pupa, or cocoon. Inside the cocoon, our body parts changed into the body of an adult butterfly. Then we emerged to start looking for a mate.
I died when I was 4 weeks old. I was very old, but I didn't die of old age. I was so exhausted after my love making that I was eaten by a snail.
I was born a reptile, a descendant of the more aggressive crocodiles with whom we normally lived side by side. Some of us were as small as 2m long and as big as nearly 6m. We only lived in the United States and in China in freshwater environments, such as ponds, marshes, wetlands, rivers, lakes, and swamps. Males were solitary territorial animals. Despite our slow moving ways, we were capable of short bursts of speed, especially in very short lunges.
Our main prey was smaller animals that we killed and ate with a single bite. We killed larger prey by grabbing it and dragging it into the water to drown. We consumed food that was too big to eat in one bite by allowing it to rot, or by biting and then spinning or convulsing wildly until bite-size chunks were torn off. We had on average 75 teeth. Most of the muscle in our jaw evolved to bite and grip prey. The muscles that closed our jaws were exceptionally powerful, but the muscles that opened them were comparatively weak. When young, we ate fish, insects, snails, crustaceans, and worms. As we matured, we took progressively larger prey. Our stomachs contained stones to help us grind and digest our food. We even consumed dead and decaying flesh when and if we were sufficiently hungry.
When it was time to mate, we formed "bellowing choruses" where we bellowed together for a few minutes a few times a day after sunrise. The bellows of the males were accompanied by powerful blasts of very low frequency sounds. We sometimes gathered in large numbers for group courtship rituals where we moved like we were dancing. Females built nests of decomposing vegetation that provided the heat for incubating the eggs. Whether we were born male or female depended on the incubation temperature of our eggs before they hatched. For every male that hatched, 5 females hatched.
Opposite to that for turtles, a higher temperature produced males and a lower temperature produced females. Also opposite to that for turtles, our moms defended their nests from predators and assisted the hatchlings to water. She provided protection to the young for about a year if they remained in the area. No other reptiles except crocodiles did this. The biggest threat to our young was adult alligators who killed half of our under one year old children.
I died of old age when I was 75 years old.
I was a relative of whales. We were mammals who lived in water. We came in a variety of sizes, as small as 1m and as big as 10m. We lived worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas. Some of us lived in fresh water. We were carnivores, eating mostly fish and squid. We had a very large and highly complex brain and we were among the most intelligent animals. Our friendly appearance with our "smile" and playful attitude made us very popular with humans who were able to train us to do various tricks when they finally evolved millions of years later.
We were descendants of terrestrial mammals just like the whales and porpoises were. Our most recent ancestors entered the water roughly 50 million years before us. We were not your typical mammals. We had no hair. Other than diseases and parasites, we had few natural enemies. We could tolerate and recover from extreme injuries, such as shark bites. We could heal wounds very rapidly and did not hemorrhage even when we had very deep cuts which quickly healed without disfigurement or infection.
We were able to see very well in and out of the water and hear very high frequencies. We were capable of making a broad range of sounds using nasal air sacs located just below our blowhole. Like bats, we were able to see and navigate using echoes. Our very many teeth functioned as antennae receiving incoming sounds and we were able to pinpoint the exact location of a sound. Our sense of touch was also well-developed, with free nerve endings densely packed in the skin, especially around the snout, pectoral fins and genital area. We smelled our environment by tasting the water we swam in.
We were very social, living in groups of up to a dozen individuals. In places with a high abundance of food, we formed super groups of up to 1000 individuals. Individuals communicated using a variety of clicks, whistle-like sounds and other vocalizations. We established very strong social bonds, staying with injured or ill individuals and even helping them to breathe by bringing them to the surface if needed. This altruism was not limited to our own species. We helped whomever and wherever we could. But we were not always so nice. We could engage in acts of aggression towards each other when we had to settle disputes between companions and when we competed for females. Acts of aggression could escalate to the point of being exiled from our group. Some males have been even known to eat their young.
We learned how to fish for fish. Our group herded a school of fish into a small volume, and individual members then took turns plowing through and feeding on the stunned fish. Sometimes we chased fish into shallow waters to catch them more easily. Sometimes we drove prey onto mud banks for easy pickings. We even hunted and captured sea lions by whacking them with our tails; stunning them and knocking them out of the water.
We could leap high above the water surface and performed acrobatics. We landed on our backs to dislodge parasites sticking on us. When we saw flocks of bird above in the air, we knew that there were schools of fish below in the water. Sometime we just showed off and played. Play was an important part of our life. Despite that our moms told us not to play with our food, we played with seaweed and harassed other local creatures, like seabirds and turtles. We play-fought with our friends and we enjoyed riding and surfing on waves. We slept with only one brain hemisphere in slow-wave sleep at a time, thus maintaining enough consciousness to surface to breathe and to watch for possible predators and other threats. We had culture. We taught our young to use tools. Mothers taught their daughters to cover their snouts with sponges to protect them while foraging. Fathers taught their sons to use weeds and sticks as part of a sexual display to attract mates.
Our reproductive organs were located on our underside. Males had two slits, one concealing the penis and one further behind for the anus. Females had one genital slit, housing the vagina and the anus. Two mammary slits were positioned on either side of the female's genital slit. We were early starters, becoming sexually active at a young age, even before reaching sexual maturity. We engaged in lengthy foreplay and copulated belly to belly coming back for seconds several times within a short time span. Once pregnant, the ladies gave birth to a single calf in about a year. We didn't have sex just to reproduce. We also had sex just for the fun of it. Sometimes some of us even had sex with partners of the same sex. We liked sex so much that some even had sex with with other animals who were not even dolphins.
I was born a very large mammal with a trunk and I was afraid of very small mice. I was descendant of the woolly mammoths with long, curved tusks and long woolly hair. I lived in India. We were the largest living terrestrial animal, reaching a height of 4m. We communicated by touch, sight, and sound. We detected vibrations on the ground of running herds 35km away. We had a long trunk made up of pure muscle for smelling, eating, drinking, washing and grasping objects as high as 7m. It was like having an arm and a trumpet at the same time. We blew our horn and made very low but loud sounds that carried up to 10km for long-distance communication. We used our trunk as a snorkel when we were underwater. Thanks to our trunk, we had a very keen sense of smell which we also used to communicate with each other.
We had teeth two of which grew into 2 tusks of ivory which serve as tools for moving objects and digging and as weapons for defending and fighting. We had large ear flaps filled with blood vessels for keeping us cool. We communicated by moving our ears in a certain way and to a certain position, depending on what we wanted to say. We ate plants and lived in different habitats like savannas, forests, deserts and marshes. We preferred to stay near water. Because we were so large, we had a great impact on our environment. Other animals tended to keep their distance, and predators such as lions, tigers and hyenas usually targeted only our young.
Females tended to live in family groups, which either consisted of one female with her calves, or several related females with offspring led by the oldest called the matriarch. Multiple family groups came together to socialize. Males left their family groups when they reached puberty to live alone or to live with other males. Adult males interacted with family groups when they were looking for a mate. Then they entered a state of increased testosterone and aggression, which helped them gain dominance and promised them reproductive success. Behaviors associated with this state included walking with our head held high and swinging, picking at the ground with our tusk, marking, rumbling and waving one ear at a time. This ritual lasted until we received attention from the ladies.
Males had more than one mate. When females were in heat, they released chemical signals in their urine and vaginal secretions to signal readiness to mate. The males sniffed the ladies to assess their readiness and willingness and if both were ready and willing, they took on the role of body guards defending the ladies from other males. For young females, the approach of an older bull was intimidating and her relatives stayed nearby to provide support and reassurance. During copulation, the male laid his trunk over the female's back. The penis was very mobile, being able to move independently of the pelvis, and it curved forward and upward prior to mounting. Copulation took place within 45 seconds, and did not involve pelvic thrusting. Homosexual behavior was frequent in both sexes and males and females stimulated each other by masturbating one another with their trunks.
Gestation lasted around two years. A newborn quickly stood and walked to follow mom and the family herd. Adults and most of the other young gathered around the newborn, touching and caressing it with their trunks. For the first few days, the mother was intolerant of other herd members near her young. Whenever a predator was near, the family group gathered together forming a ring around their calves to protect them.
For the first 3 months, a calf relied entirely on milk from its mother. After that, it began to forage for vegetation and sucked water with its trunk to drink and shower. Calves continued to suckle at the same rate as before until their sixth month, after which they became more independent when feeding. By 9 months, mouth, trunk and foot coordination was perfected. After a year, a calf's abilities to groom drink, and feed itself were fully developed. It still needed its mother for protection from predators for at least another year. Play was an important part of our youth. Females ran and chased each other, while males play-fought. Females were sexually mature by the age of 9, while the males became mature around 15.
Touching was an important form of communication. Individuals greeted each other by stroking or wrapping their trunks around each other. Older ones used trunk-slaps, kicks and shoves to discipline younger ones. Individuals of any age and sex touched each other's mouths and genitals with their trunk, particularly during meetings or when excited. Touching was especially important for mother–calf communication. We were as intelligent as monkeys. We had a good memory and we had self-awareness, being able to remember and recognize our own reflection. We even showed empathy for the dying or dead individuals of our kind.
When I died at a ripe old age of 70, everyone cried at my funeral.
Closely related to squirrels, we were known for building dams, canals, and lodges. We were the second-largest rodents in the world. Our family built one or more dams to provide still, deep water to protect us against predators and to float food and building material. We had powerful and sharp front teeth to cut down trees that we used both for building and for food. In the absence of existing ponds, we had to construct dams before building our lodges. We placed vertical poles that we filled in with horizontally placed branches. We filled the gaps between the branches with a combination of weeds and mud until the dam was high enough to surround our lodge with water. We were known for our alarm signals. When we noticed any danger approaching, we rapidly dove under and forcefully slapped the water with our broad tail. The loud sound we made was heard over great distances above and below water and it warned other beavers in the area of the approaching danger. Once one of us sounded the alarm, all others dove and stayed underwater for some time. We were slow on land, but we were good swimmers, able to stay under water for as long as 15 minutes.
Our preferred food was the inner bark of hardwood trees that grew near the lakes and streams near where we lived. Some of our favorite trees were the tall, fast growing quaking aspen, the cottonwood with its relative soft fibers, the tough fibrous willow, the woody and protein rich alder, the birch, the maple and the cherry. We ate pond-weed and water lilies for desert. We did not hibernate in winter. We stored our winter food in the form of sticks and logs and ate the bark. Our lodge was covered by insulating snow in the winter keeping it nice and cozy like we would be in an igloo. We had poor eyesight but a keen sense of hearing, smelling and touching. We had teeth that grew continuously so that they were never worn down by chewing on wood. We didn`t stop growing and lived up to 24 years.
I lived in a family of 10 with my mother, father, 3 brothers and 4 sisters. My parents stayed together until my father died. Then and only then did my mother find us a new father. My parents mated every year. I was raised by both my mother and my father. My mom was my primary caretaker while my father maintained our territory. I was dependent on my parents for food and for learning life skills. My brothers, sisters and I spent most of our time playing. Our favorite game was playing family and copying whatever our parents did.
When I was 1 year old, I was old enough to help my parents. I helped build food caches in the fall and helped to repair our dams and our lodge. Our parents were very patient and forgiving of the many mistakes we made whenever we tried to help them. When I was 2 years old, I was old enough to help with feeding, grooming and guarding my younger siblings. I left my family when I was 3 years old. I did not settle too far away. In time I found a partner, a territory to settle in, we built a lodge and we raised our own kids. I was able to recognize the family members I left behind by their distinctive smell. We maintained and defended our territories; the areas we used for feeding, nesting and mating. We marked the border of our territories by constructing "scent mounts" made of mud, debris and a urine based substance we excreted. Once we detected intruders, finding them and fighting them until they left became our highest priority, higher than finding food.
When man evolved many millions of years later, our fur was highly valued for its softness and durability. Much of North America was explored by trappers seeking our pelts for export to Europe. Our most valuable part was our inner fur whose many minute barbs made it excellent for felting. Our fur was used for barter by Native Americans to buy European goods like alcohol and guns so that they could kill more of us faster. Our furs were then shipped back to Great Britain and France where they were made into hats which were in fashion for many generations.
I was born the tallest terrestrial animal with the longest neck and longest legs that made me more than 5m tall. We lived in the savannas, grasslands and open woodlands of Africa. Our primary food source was acacia leaves which were so high up that other herbivores couldn't reach them. We were preyed on by lions. Our calves were also targeted by leopards and spotted hyenas. We did not have strong social bonds, though we did gather in loose aggregations of up to 32 consisting of mothers and their young whenever we happened to be moving in the same general direction. We only stayed together for a few weeks to a few months. Teenager males were social and engaged in play fights. However the older they got, the more solitary they became. Males occasionally wandered far from the areas that they normally frequented. We were not territorial but we did have home ranges.
Although we were generally quiet and non-vocal, we did communicate using various sounds. Females called their young by bellowing. Calves emitted snorts, bleats, mooing and mewing sounds. We also snored, hissed, moaned and made flute-like sounds, and we communicated over long distances using very low frequency sounds. During courtship rituals, males emitted loud coughs to get the attention of the ladies.
Males used their necks as weapons in combat, a behavior called "necking". Necking was used to establish dominance and males that won necking bouts had greater success in finding mates to mate with. Necking could be low or high intensity. In low intensity necking the combatants rubbed and leaned against each other. Males who were more erect won the bout. In high intensity necking the combatants spread their front legs and swung their necks at each other attempting to land blows. The contestants tried to dodge each other's blows. Necking duels could last as long as 30 minutes, depending on how well matched the combatants were. After a duel, it was common for two males to caress and court each other leading up to mounting and climax. We just wanted to show off to the ladies and show them what to expect from us. We were showoffs as nearly all mounting incidents took place between males. The ladies didn't seem particularly impressed. Females became sexually mature when they were 4 years old. Males had to wait until they were at least 7 years old for the opportunity to mate.
A few older males mated with the fertile females. Males assessed female fertility by tasting their urine. Males preferred young adult females over juveniles and older adults. Once a female in heat was detected, the male attempted to court her. When courting, the dominant males kept the subordinate ones at bay. During copulation, the males stood on their hind legs with heads held high and their front legs resting on the female's sides.
Gestation lasted about 450 days after which normally a single calf was born. Twins were born on rare occasions. Mothers groomed the nearly 2m tall newborns and helped them stand up. Within a few hours of birth the calves ran around and were almost indistinguishable from those already one week old. For the first few weeks the calves spent most of their time hiding. Males played almost no role in raising the young although they had friendly interactions. Females bore the sole responsibility for raising the young. Mothers with calves gathered in nursery herds and browsed together. Mothers in such a group sometimes left their calves with a female babysitter while they went out to forage and drink and have a good time. Calves were at risk of being killed by predators and mothers stood over their calves and kicked at any who approached. Females watching calves of other mothers alerted only their own young whenever they detected danger. The bond that mothers shared with their calves lasted only until the next calving.
Because of our size, our eyesight and our powerful kicks, we were usually safe from all predators except lions and crocodiles that could easily get us whenever we were in a vulnerable position like we were when we bent down to drink. Most survived predators and lived up to 25 years. Calves on the other hand were preyed on by leopards, and spotted hyenas and only a half of them survived into adulthood.
I was one of the unlucky calves killed by a spotted hyena when I wandered too far away from mom.
I was born a bird that could not fly but I was able to run 70km/h. We were the fastest and the largest bird and we laid the largest eggs. We were relatives of kiwis and emus and lived in Africa. We mainly fed on seeds, shrubs, grass, fruit and flowers; and occasionally insects such as locusts. We lived in nomadic groups of 5 to 50 birds. When threatened, we either hid ourselves by lying down with our heads and necks flat on the ground to appear like a mound of earth, or we ran away. When cornered, we attacked with a kick of our powerful legs.
Territorial males fought to have a harem of 2-7 females and paired with the strongest one called the major female. We became sexually mature when we were 2-4 years old; females matured about 6 months earlier. As with other birds, we reproduced several times over our lifetime. I was born a male. When I found a suitable female to mate with I flapped my useless wings to attract her. Once I got her attention, I drove away all the onlookers and poking on the ground with my bill I violently flapped my wings to symbolically clear out a nest in the soil. This got the ladies so excited that they ran circles around me getting me excited and making my head spin around in a spiral motion until the ladies dropped to the ground. Then I mounted them and we copulated.
The females laid their fertilized eggs in a single communal nest, a simple pit scraped in the ground by their males. The dominant female laid her eggs first, and then and only then did the other females laid their eggs. When it was time to cover them for incubation the dominant female discarded some of the eggs from the weaker females in the harem leaving only about 20 eggs in the nest. Both parents cooperated in rearing their chicks. The eggs were incubated by the females during the day and by the males during the night. This was our camouflage strategy as the drab females blended in with the sand, while the black males were nearly undetectable in the night. The incubation period was 35 -45 days. The males defended the hatchlings and showed them how to be fed by letting themselves be fed by the females. Teaching by example!
As flightless birds in the African savanna, we faced a variety of formidable predators throughout our life cycle. Animals that preyed on us included cheetahs, lions, leopards, African hunting dogs, and spotted hyena. We often outran most of our predators in a pursuit, so most predators tried to ambush us. When our nest or young were threatened, we created a distraction feigning injury and attracting the predator to us. But not always! Sometimes we fiercely fought predators, especially when our chicks were in danger. I even killed a lion, our largest predator, in such a confrontation. I lived to a ripe old age of 50 when I died. I strayed some distance from my nest and was ambushed and killed by a cheetah who ran much faster than me.
I was born a big fast cat. Other big cats roared but couldn't purr. We purred but couldn't roar. We purred because it improved our bone density and promoted healing. We didn't need to roar and advertise our powers because we were the fastest animal. We could run up to 120km/h in short bursts covering distances up to 500m. We could accelerate from 0 to over 100km/h in five seconds. We were also one of the few cats with semi-retractable claws offering extra grip in our high-speed pursuits. We inhabited most of Africa and parts of the Middle East. We went through a prolonged period of inbreeding following a sharp reduction in size of our population during the last ice age 2.5 million years ago. We thrived in areas with vast expanses of land where prey was abundant. We liked to live in open habitats such as semi desert, prairie, grasslands, and savannas.
Females reached maturity in 2 years and males in 1 year although they did not usually mate until at least 3 years old. Mating occurred throughout the year. Females were sexually promiscuous and often had cubs by many different males. Females gave birth to about 4 cubs after a gestation period of 90 days.
Females raised their cubs on their own. At 18 months, the mothers left their cubs, which then formed a group that stayed together for another 6 months. After 2 years, the female siblings left the group and the young males remained together for life.
Unlike males, females did not establish territories. They shared their home range with other females' home ranges, often those of their daughters, mothers, or sisters. Females always hunted alone, although cubs accompanied their mothers to learn to hunt once they reached the age of 6 weeks. We stalked prey to within 10–30 m before chasing them. We caught about half of what we chased. We did not seek out the old or weak, rather we sought out healthier individuals who strayed too far from their group.
We lived up to 12 years.
I was born in a fast flowing cold mountain stream under a rock. My mom laid her 5000 eggs high up in a shallow mountain stream. My father sprayed them with sperm and mom buried them under a rock. We stayed home for a few years. We fed on terrestrial and aquatic insects, while we were young, and on other smaller fish when we were older.
At first I thought that I was a trout and that I would go to the closest lake and spend my entire life in the deep and cold lake floor. But my mom told me that I was really a salmon and that I was born to be a traveler and an explorer. She told me that I had to pass by all the lakes no matter how deep and attractive they were. I had to keep swimming downstream all the way until I reached a salty lake that was so big that I could not see the other side. I had to eat until I was over a meter long and then and only then could I return home to the exact spot where I was born and make many babies there. When I asked her how in the world I could ever find my way back, she told me that all I had to do was to follow my nose. I had left behind me a trail of sweat on the river floor as easy to follow back as if they were footprints in snow.
Only 1 in 10 of my siblings survived to make our trip to the ocean. We spent up to 5 years in the ocean until we became sexually mature adults 1.5m long. Then we returned home to spawn, just like mom told us we had to. Our journey home was amazing, swimming hundreds of kilometers upstream against strong currents and rapids. Sometimes we had to leap over waterfalls 4m high. We died within a few days of spawning. Many of us were eaten by the hungry bald eagles and grizzly bears who knew exactly where to wait for us. I was eaten by a bald eagle.
I was born an eagle with a white head that made me look bald. I lived in North America near large bodies of open water with an abundant food supply and old trees tall enough for nesting. We were powerful fliers, and soared on thermal convection currents. We reached speeds of 70km/h when gliding, and about 50km/h while carrying fish and up to 160km/h while diving. We were opportunistic feeders subsisting mainly on fish. We swooped down and snatched them from the water with our razor sharp talons. We build very large nests, up to 4m deep and 2.5m wide. As adults we had a wingspan of 2m. We kept our nest as long as they lasted. Usually they lasted up to 5 years.
Females were larger than males but had identical plumage. We were sexually mature when we were 5 years old. Like the salmon we fished, we returned to the area where we were born. We mated for life. But we did not always stay with our mates. We found new mates if our partners could not have children, or if they died. Our courtship involved elaborate, spectacular calls and acrobatic flight displays, including swoops, chases and cartwheels, in which we flew high, locked talons, and free-fell, separating just before hitting the ground. Our territory was 1 to 2km of waterside habitat.
Females produced 2 eggs per year and both the male and female took turns incubating the eggs and hunting for food and looking for nesting material. For the first 3 weeks of the nestling period at least one adult was at the nest almost 100% of the time. As young eagles, we gained up to 170g a day. We picked up and manipulated sticks, played tug of war with each other, practiced holding things in our talons, and stretched and flapped our wings. After 3 months, we were strong enough to leave the nest but remained close by and returned to be fed for 6 more weeks. 2 months after that, we left our parents and started our own lives. For the next 4 years, we wandered widely in search of food until we attained adult plumage and were ready to find mates and reproduce.
Our average lifespan was 20 years. I was eaten by a grizzly bear as I was fishing for salmon during the annual salmon run. We happened to be in the same place and we went for the same salmon at the same time. The salmon got away, but I didn't.
I was born a brown bear with a hump on my back, a characteristic of grizzlies. We lived in Asia, Europe and North America. My ancestors crossed over the Bering Strait from eastern Russia to Alaska 100,000 years ago. They stayed north and only moved south 13,000 years ago.
The males were solitary. The females stayed with their cubs. All of us congregated every year alongside streams, lakes, rivers, and ponds during the salmon spawn. The females produced 2 cubs 200 days after copulation. They stayed with their cubs 2 years to care for and protect them. The moms abstained from having sex for 3 or more years after the cubs left or were eaten by hungry males. Male grizzly bears had territories up to 4,000 square km making finding a female scent very difficult and causing inbreeding with its myriad of problems.
We were not picky eaters. Even though we had the digestive system of carnivores, we ate both plants and animals. We preyed on large mammals, when available, such as moose, deer, sheep, elk, bison, caribou, and even black bears. We fed on fish such as salmon, trout, and bass. We also readily scavenged food or carrion left behind by other animals. We often waited for a substantial snowstorm before we entered our den, lessening the chances predators would find us hibernating during the long cold winters.
We were ecosystem engineers, capturing salmon and carrying them into adjacent wooded areas where we deposit our nutrient-rich urine and feces and partially eaten carcasses that provided as much as 24% of the total nitrogen available to the woodlands. We were also important seed distributors in our habitats depositing berry seeds from the many berries we ate.
The males were solitary. The females stayed with their cubs. All of us congregated every year alongside streams, lakes, rivers, and ponds during the salmon spawn. The females produced 2 cubs 200 days after copulation. They stayed with their cubs 2 years to care for and protect them. The moms abstained from having sex for 3 or more years after the cubs left or were eaten by hungry males. Male grizzly bears had territories up to 4,000 square km making finding a female scent very difficult and causing inbreeding with its myriad of problems.
We were not picky eaters. Even though we had the digestive system of carnivores, we ate both plants and animals. We preyed on large mammals, when available, such as moose, deer, sheep, elk, bison, caribou, and even black bears. We fed on fish such as salmon, trout, and bass. We also readily scavenged food or carrion left behind by other animals. We often waited for a substantial snowstorm before we entered our den, lessening the chances predators would find us hibernating during the long cold winters.
We were ecosystem engineers, capturing salmon and carrying them into adjacent wooded areas where we deposit our nutrient-rich urine and feces and partially eaten carcasses that provided as much as 24% of the total nitrogen available to the woodlands. We were also important seed distributors in our habitats depositing berry seeds from the many berries we ate.
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Stork
Our nests were over 2m in diameter and we used them for many years, always returning to them from our long migrations. We constructed the nest from branches and sticks and lined them with twigs, grasses, sod, rags, and paper. Both parents participated in nest construction. Completion of the structure was often signaled by the addition of one leafy branch to the edge of the nest. We built our nests on trees, on cliff-ledges, and when man finally arrived on the scene, on his rooftops, towers, chimneys, and telephone poles. We were more attached to our nests than we were to our partners whom we occasionally changed.
We migrated and flew great distances every year. We had wing spans of over 3 meters. We relied on thermals of hot air for our annual migrations between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. We avoided the shortest route over the Mediterranean, because thermals only formed over land. We detoured, staying over as much land as possible getting help from the thermals for almost the entire trip.
Returning from our winter vacation, males usually returned to their nest first. Arriving females were greeted by males who lowered themselves on the nest into the incubating posture, erected their neck and shook their head from side to side. If they accepted the new arrivals as their mates, both cemented their pair bond by holding their wings away from their sides and pumping their heads up and down. This was often accompanied by bill-clattering. When male and female were already paired in previous years, shorter courtships took place.
Females laid 3-5 eggs and both parents shared incubation duties for a month. Both parents fed the young chicks in the nest until they left the nest 2 months after they were born. They returned each evening to beg for food from their parents until they reached sexual maturity after 4 years when they found mates to mate with and made their own nests.
I died when I was 30 years old.
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Chimpanzee
We lived in large multiple-male and multiple-female social groups called communities. Within a community, a definite social hierarchy was dictated by the position of individuals and the influence they had on others. A dominant male was referred to as the alpha male, the highest-ranking male who controlled the group and maintained order during any disputes. The alpha male did not always have to be the largest or strongest male, but rather the most manipulative male who influenced the goings on within a group. Males typically attained dominance through cultivating allies who provided support for that individual in case of future ambitions for power. Alpha males regularly made themselves look as threatening and as powerful as possible. This served to intimidate other members in an attempt to hold on to power and maintain authority, and it was fundamental to the alphas holding on to their status. Lower-ranking members showed respect by making submissive gestures in body language or reaching out their hands while grunting.
Females showed submission to the alphas by presenting their asses. Females also had a hierarchy which was influenced by the position of a female individual within a group. In some communities, the young females inherited high status from a high-ranking mother. The females also formed allies to dominate lower-ranking females. In contrast to males, who had a main purpose of acquiring dominant status for access to mating privileges, females acquire dominant status for access to resources such as food. High-ranking females often got first access to resources. In general, both genders acquired dominant status to improve social standing within a group. It was often the females who choose the alpha males. For a male to win the alpha status, he had to gain acceptance from the females in the community. Females had to make sure their group was going to places that supplied them with enough food. There were times when a group of dominant females ousted an alpha male which was not to their preference and rather backed up another male who they saw potential of leading the group as a successful alpha male.
We had sophisticated hunting strategies requiring cooperation, influence and rank. We were status conscious, manipulative and at the same time easily manipulated and deceived. We learned to use symbols and understood aspects of human language including some relational syntax, concepts of number and numerical sequence. We were capable of spontaneous planning for a future state or event. We made tools and used them to acquire foods. We dug into termite mounds with large stick tools, and then used a small stick that had been trimmed to "fish" the termites out. We sharpened sticks with our teeth to use as spears. We constructed night nests by lacing together branches from one or more trees. Nests consisted of a mattress, supported on a strong foundation, and lined above with soft leaves and twigs.
We engaged in altruistic behavior within our groups. Both male and female adults adopted orphaned young of their group. Different groups sometimes shared food, formed coalitions, and cooperated in hunting and border patrolling. Sometimes we adopted young that came from unrelated groups. Even males took care of abandoned infants of unrelated groups, though in most cases they would abuse and kill those infants. We mourned, were romantic, danced for rain, appreciated the natural beauty of sunsets over a lake, were curious and respected wildlife. We communicated using vocalizations, hand gestures, and facial expressions. We could be very aggressive, highly territorial and could kill each other in cold blood and even brag and laugh about it. But our vocal chords were underdeveloped and we had a much too big a mouth and tongue and throat to be able to talk about it.
I died of old age when I was 50 years old. We were the next thing to being human.
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Homo Erectus, Bed bug, House dust mite, Firefly, Coral reef, Silkworm, Earthworm, Venus Flytrap, Camel, House-fly, House-cat, House-dog, Chicken, Cow, Horse
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