For anyone whos not seen the documentary series on animal planet, it deals with what the future holds for earth not a few hundred years but a few million years from now. They talk about the type of animals that would exist 5-200 million years from now. Very few primates, just one or two mammals left and no humans (at least not on earth).
Based on evolution I guess this is all possible though I wonder what would drive humans away from earth - the changes in the environment or the end of most useful resources/food for people (money). How long do humans would exist on earth (so far civilization is about may be 30,000 yrs old and earliest humans were supposed to have existed perhaps only for a 100,000 years).
Also interesting to see is that in 5 million years scientists believe that animals would still be animals in all senses of the word, with limited intelligence and no language of any consequence. Unless it is a really dramatic climatic change somehow I just dont feel that the apes will never progress beyond using sticks in 5-100 million years.
The other key thing the series seemed to emphasize was large sized animals with very specialized eating/hunting habits and specific habitats.
So anyone watch the documentaries? Any thoughts on the show?
From something I read a long time ago, you cna get a new species in about 50,000 years hence a million years is fairly long. I didnt see the million year part but I did see the 5 and 100 and 200 million parts. And what Bandoostaa is talking about was at the 200 million year points.
I did however feel basically the producers just took all the animals who have been able to survive since the dinos and make them more profound. So we have sharks, squids, bats and rodents. So none of the new species which I dont agree with completely either.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by hmcq: *
From something I read a long time ago, you cna get a new species in about 50,000.
[/QUOTE]
I don't dipute that, I was commenting on the 3 (1, 2 and 4) points mentioned by Bandoostaa, which are highly unlikely to be achieved in a million years especially point 4!
I thought the series was fun and carried through the message of environmental change and evolutionary consequences. Great stuff for kids and adults too.
Well arent the elusive gaint squids almost the largest animals already right behind the whales?
the animals on land were actually supposed to be relatives of the octopus family and not the squid.
I am not sure about geologic time scales but perhaps you can tell us how long such events would take? I know the ice ages occur overed over a few thousand years, 10-20 thousands, if I remember correctly.
The most fun part for me watching those series were the names they came up with. The swampus was just too funny a name for the octopus that lives in the swamps :)
The thing about the giant squid is that we know so little about them (only ever caught and observed dead specimens) and seems unwise to supposition on their potential size, intelligence or importance; specimens that have been inadvertently dragged up by fishing nets are still dwarfed by the Blue whale, which is incidentally the largest animal to 'ever' live on the planet at any time.
Continental drift/plate tectonic movement rates are typically a few cm (1-10cm) a year which would translate to a mere 10km to 100km movement over a million years, hardly enough to push France to the equator, we’d need to wait 100’s of millions of years for that to happen.
Besides France which sits on the Eurasian plate is not moving south at all at the moment but rather north east as the African plate continues its journey north creating compressional shear responsible for the seismicity in North Africa and Eastern med.
So seems highly unlikely that France would be rain forested in this time scale (1Ma) at least.
As for North America becoming a desert in this time scale, many more factors other than continental drift need to considered, but over this time scale it again seems unlikely.
Was this the same series that had the skies filled with giant bats? And some sort of underground critter that had evolved from a quail or other ground nesting bird??? I thought it was interesting, but didn't catch much of it.