The earth has a life history of 4 billion years, and a large number of various creatures have appeared during the long life. In different life stages, there will be a kind of domineering creatures. For example, in the era of giant insects 300 million years ago, the insects that dominated the earth at that time were the insects that we can’t look down on. Their huge size dominated the earth’s biological world.
After the era of giant insects ended, the era of dinosaurs began. After 160 million years of evolution and development, dinosaurs became the most widespread and numerous overlord-level creatures on the earth at that time. Unfortunately, 65 million years ago, the impact of an asteroid ended the age of dinosaurs.
After the end of the dinosaur age, mammals began to rise, and human ancestors were born millions of years ago. Mankind’s dominance of the earth is different from the hegemons of other different creatures. Other creatures dominate the earth by power, while human beings dominate the earth by wisdom.
Mankind relies on wisdom to survive and grow in the complex and ever-changing ecological environment of the earth. By ten thousand years ago, mankind formed a primitive civilization. After continuous development, human civilization embarked on the path of technological development hundreds of years ago, and truly ushered in sublimation and achieved a qualitative leap.
Although human beings are great, it can be seen from the entire life history of the earth that no creature can dominate the earth forever. Whether it is the era of giant insects that once dominated for a while or the era of dinosaurs that lasted for 160 million years, it will come to an end for various reasons. So some people speculate that mankind may not be the overlord of the earth forever, and that mankind may disappear for some reason in the future.
If mankind disappears suddenly, and after a long period of ecological evolution, a new hegemon will appear on the earth and a new era will usher in. So who will be the new overlord of the earth? Many people might not think of this kind of creature.
There are hundreds of species on the earth, of which mammals are the mainstream. Many people may think that if humans disappear, then the new overlord of the earth may be a species of mammals. If you think this way, you may be wrong. Yes, mammals do have more genetic similarities with humans, especially chimpanzees, whose genes are 99% similar to humans.
Without the existence of humans, many people would think that chimpanzees or other primates would become the new overlord. However, after research and analysis, we believe that primates have little hope of dominating the earth. Not only primates, but other mammals are unlikely to become new hegemons. On the contrary, they are very small in our eyes. Ants may become the new overlord of the earth.
Many people may be very surprised. How can we only replace humans as the new overlord if we can trample a lot of ants on one foot? This is a bit too ridiculous. If you think so, it can only mean that you don’t know much about ants, such tiny creatures. If you really understand ants, you will make the same guess as me and think of humans. After disappearing, the ant has the most hope to become the new overlord. So what is special about ants?
We must understand that if any creature wants to replace human beings and become the new overlord of the earth, it needs to have some advantages, such as strong power, smartness, and a group social form similar to human beings. Among these conditions, it is most important to have human-like group social forms. To know that there are millions of creatures on the earth, human ancestors can become the hegemon of the earth with their weak bodies, precisely because they have formed a complicated group life pattern under the guidance of wisdom.
Ants are also group creatures, and their group character is more advanced than other group creatures. No matter what you do, it is very orderly and regular. Every ant colony has a leader who can lead the entire colony to organize activities.
Ants are not only organized, but also able to achieve a high degree of cooperation. At this point, other organisms are completely incomparable. Only humans and ants can achieve this highly coordinated and organized biological group. Therefore, ants are most similar to humans in terms of a high degree of community, and to become the overlord of the earth, this is a very important indicator.
Some people may say that although the colony of ants is very strong, but because they are too small, their strength and endurance are very small, and it is impossible to compete with other creatures. So is the ant’s strength and endurance really weak? If you think so, you are wrong.
In fact, the strength and endurance of ants are not weak at all. Relatively speaking, ants can be said to be the most powerful creatures on earth. According to statistics from a study, wild ants can bear objects that are 5000 times heavier than themselves, which is far inferior to other creatures, including humans.
Moreover, the cohesion of ants in group fighting is very strong. When facing danger or carrying food, they will gather together and work together to bring the food home. According to a study in the journal “Science Advances”, even if ants are injured in combat effectiveness, most of the ants will continue to fight, and the injured ants will be brought back to their nests to recuperate.
Finally, the ant’s navigation ability is also very strong. Once separated from its partner, it will use the sun and the original memory to find the partner or return to the nest. It can be seen that ants are indeed very powerful creatures. The reason why they are not called overlords in today’s biological world, but instead become the bottom layer of creatures, is mainly because the ants are too small.
The small size makes the single ant very limited, unable to fight against other creatures. However, ants often kill elephants, but the number of ants is large enough to exert efficient group gathering power, then as time goes by, other creatures will not be the opponents of ants.
The main reason why ants cannot rise today is the existence of humans. For example, mammals 65 million years ago were unable to grow up under the dominance of dinosaurs. They have always existed at the bottom of the biosphere. Only when the dinosaurs ushered in the end and disappeared, did the mammals rise.
The same is true for ants. When humans disappear from the earth, the spring of ants will come. At that time, the ant population will rapidly increase. According to current research, the ant population has at least 11,700 species in the world, with 21 subfamilies and 283 genera. This is a very large biological empire. At the same time, the life span of an ant is relatively long, reaching about 10 years, and a relatively long life span has also become its obvious advantage.
Of course, if the ant wants to become the overlord of the earth, it must be after the disappearance of human beings. If human beings do not disappear and live on the earth, no matter whether it is ants or other creatures, it is impossible for one day to rise. However, whether human beings will disappear in the future is still unknown.
From the perspective of the biological history of the earth, no creature can last forever, and it will usher in extinction. However, human beings are intelligent life and have also embarked on the road of science and technology to develop the people. With the help of science and technology, human eyes will not be limited to the earth, but the vast sea of stars.
As long as mankind becomes an interstellar civilization, then the earth will no longer be able to restrain us, and mankind’s footsteps will be everywhere in the universe. At that time, the hegemony of mankind on the earth will be more consolidated, and other creatures can only continue to live under the hegemony of mankind. Of course, if human beings disappeared because of some kind of disaster before they became an interstellar civilization, then the earth creatures will compete again and finally choose a new earth hegemon.