Which known animal that is still extinct would be the most likely to
be now dominating the world, by exhibiting man-like attributes of
aggressive territorial behaviour, etc.

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Clarification of Question by probonopublico-ga on 23 Mar 2005 05:50 PST

Extinct?

Did I really mean extinct?

No, I did not!

I meant NOT extinct ...

Sorry about that ... I have now adjusted the price accordingly.

Many thanks for the comments, so far.

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Clarification of Question by probonopublico-ga on 24 Mar 2005 02:38 PST

My thanks to all but ...

This is going nowhere!

The Velocoraptor perhaps ?

Bryan --

You do ask the most-interesting questions!  But "evolved" is more
scientifically correct than "invented."  And the answer depends on:
where do you want to start?

There have been lots of primates, as Bob Patterson's excellent page on
Darwin and evolution shows in the section of Genealogy, Genetics and
DNA.
"Introduction to Evolution," (Bob Patterson, 2002)
http://members.aol.com/darwinpage/intro1.htm

We keep adjusting what is known about human evolution.  In fact the
April, 2005 cover story in National Geographic is about the pygmy or
"Hobbit" people found on Flores in Indonesia.  A prime scientific
issue is: are they a separate species from Homo Erectus or are they an
early arrival of Homo Erectus that was isolated  on an island and
subject to evolutionary dwarfing.  Depending on pressures in the
environment, particularly on islands, species will increase in size
(believed to be the bias when there are adequate resources, such as
for horses) or decrease in size (as happens with elephants on Flores
or in certain forest environments).
National Geographic Magazine, April 2005
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/index.html

So, if we want to start a mere 1 million years ago, the answer is
certainly: a primate.

However, humans, moose and mice are all belong to the animal classification
of mammalia or mammals.  Mammals make up all of the warm-blooded
species that you're familiar with and which seem to dominate the
planet but were "small and shrew-like throughout the (Mesozoic) era,
but rapidly developed into larger forms following the
Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event 65 million years ago," according
to this excellent article in WordIQ.  Basically, biologists believe
that the extinction of the large dinosaurs opened and opportunity for
development of mammals (and humans):
WordIQ Encyclopedia
"Mammals"
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Mammal

So, if the starting point is 65 million years ago, it could be the giant rat.  

In either case, the species might well NOT dominate the planet, but
only portions of the planet.  A separate species might be dominant in
the Americas from Europe; other species might be the largest in
Australia or east of the Wallace Line (an important biological barrier
that separates the Indonesian islands).

But your question shows a cultural bias: the dominant species are
actually insects.  It is estimated that the bio-mass of ants alone far
exceeds that of human beings.  I'm afraid I don't remember who said it
(and it's a bastardization of a quotation ascribed to Abraham Lincoln
about the poor) but one scientist said, "What can we deduce about God
by observing the world? He must love insects, for he made so many of
them."

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

>>Which known animal that is still extinct would be the most likely to
be now dominating the world, by exhibiting man-like attributes of
aggressive territorial behaviour, etc.<<


Democrats

As a substitute teacher back in the day (about 2 years ago) I had the
supreme honor <much sarcasm in voice> of showing my biology class a
video on ancient times.  In this video 6'-7' birds were the dominant
species.  The video showed the life and times of these birds in a very
factual manor, even showing them hunt and intereact with others of
their kind.

It was rather amusing to me that these kids were being taught this as
complete fact dispite the video clearly being a theory or how life
was.  There was even a quiz that I had to give the students about this
video to make sure they learned all about these birds and their lives.
 Ah evolution at its best.

So to answer the question, perhaps these 6' birds (who seemed to
communicate well with eachother in the video) would be the dominant
species today, and they would have developed a written language and
most importantly they would be far superior to humans in the realm of
flight.  So perhaps it wouldn't have take a communist/capitalist war
to get Earthlings to the moon.

I find the descent of man quite interesting.

Supposedly we had Cromagnon that was 21st Century man - but Alpha ++
- also Neanderthal, who were ideal candidates for rugby

Yet some sort of 'half pint' version ( ourselves ) dominated

One day we will probably find that our predecessors (not ancestors)
were 'dinosaurs' with opposable thumbs

If we assume that man is top of the food chain because intelligence is
selected for in mankind, and that this advantage will always be better
than other evolutionary advantages.... Then your question really is,
which extinct creature showed signs of having intelligence selected
for evolutionary advantage. The answer to that is, Neanderthal, or any
other now extinct hominid.
Although I suspect you want longer extinct species, so it probably is
the 'raptor' familly as suggested by another poster.

However, were the earth to become massively radioactive. The insect
familly might rule the earth. Unless of course we'd given birth to
computer based intelligence, which may replace us as the earths
dominant life force.

I believe CATS would dominate the world, Bryan...

Go Albert go!!!

Steph53

>>Which known animal that is NOT extinct would be the most likely to
be now dominating the world, by exhibiting man-like attributes of
aggressive territorial behaviour, etc.<<

Republicans

One of the Star Trek The Next Generation episodes ... or movies had an
amazing take on Earth life.
An alien being was threatening all life on earth with some horrible
stuff, and it was sending out a call to Earth that people couldn't
make out.  After much debate over what the alien being wanted, Data
(my favotire Star Trek hero) suggested that humans are arrogant to
assume that the alien would only be interested in talking to people
since there are so many other species that live among them.
It turned out that the alien was trying to reestablish communication
with a humpback whale (i think humpback... some kind of whale though)
that was then extinct.  Apparently the alien had visited Earth long
ago (before the dominant humans arose) and communicated with the
whales, and was just making a return visit.

I believe you have eps and movies mixed up. The humpback whale was in
the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092007/). This was Spock who found this
out, and he also found out the whale was pregnant.

Anyway... Non-humanoid conquerors of the earth? I like the
Velociraptor idea, ... But the idea that they were primarily hunters
seems to be self-limiting. They obviously had boundaries of things
they could and would kill, even if anecdotal evidence may refute that.
(Read: they *might* have killed something as large as a t-rex or
brontosaurus, and excuse me if I've mixed up the eras where
brontosaurus, t-rex, and velociraptor would never be in the same time
frame or geographic location, but it doesn't seem likely that the
large animals were the major targets of the velociraptors.)

Unless humans killed all the exceptions, there haven't really been any
high-dexterity/fine manipulation tool usage among too many other
creatures. Neither any really permanent communication abilities
(speech is transient, scent markings also). Frankly, anything that
would say more than "I was here/this is my territory/stay away" would
be nice. One thing that comes to mind is insect communication, but
much of that is transient.

Are there any creatures that intentionally leave permanent
(non-taught, non-genetic) information about the past for the future?

Crythias,
 Thanks for the clarification.  I was fairly certain I remembered
Picard and Data having that conversation... I can even picture the
look on Data's face as he said it, I guess too many years have passed
and too many Star Trec movies/shows have blurred my memory.  But yeah,
thanks for correcting me!  I miss Data.

The Virus?s

Norman