I have a question. I am an 8th grade student and I will soon be going to high school. Yet my parents dont se why I would want to go to an Agricultural magnet school. They just want me to go to a school with a good band! I watched this show and saw my dreams put to life! This is what I've always wanted to do since I was little! I just want to know what kind of classes and studies I will need to take in Colledge to do these kind of things. I have had some experience with Marine Biology when I was chosen to participate in a special class for gifted students at the University of Florida. I hope you can supply me with some advice to jump-start my ideas! THANK YOU!
-SCOTT

I have to wonder how you chose the animals most suited to evolve or become extinct.

Some animals, such as the shark, are understandable, as sharks have been on the planet for an incredibly long period of time with relatively little change. However, some, such as the uakari and the electric eel, seem to be random. And I am unsure as to why certain known survivors, such as crocodiles, have apparently become extinct.

I am also curious as to how all of the mammals were wiped out to merely the poggle. I'd think they'd adapt into some new form of life, such as how the dinosaurs evolved into birds.

In addition, the toraton's size seems to be an impossibility. How can the local ecosystem sustain a herd of these massive creatures. They'd practically eat a forest clean within a week.

There also seemed to be a lack of animals per habitat. The number of species was at most four and at least two. Was this due to a lack of creativity? A lack of budget?

And I have to ask, did all the scientists working on this show just really like squids? They seem to be the extant form of life on this wierd world.

minigoo, we are actually adapting. Because of the ammount of global immigration, races have become mixed in countries other than their native countries, which is very good. The olny thing is that skin color is designed for the neccesary spf. I have read of a girl of "pure" African heritage who was born and still has pale "white" skin, who lives in the Northern US. My cousin goes to school in California, and she tells me that some caucasions who spend a fair amount of their time in the sun have dark brown "black" skin, hence, EVOLUTION!

qazxsw3456, We are the big brutes of our time, as you've pointed out. However, if the conditions of the Earth fare as predicted, they're right- humans can't survive. Our technology that we rely so heavily rely on will be our downfall; it's weakening our species and killing our world.

This is the 2nd show I seen on this subject.The Future Is Wild was the best though.It showed Cats thats looked like monkeys and bats that ran on the ground.Have you ever seen it?

I found this show highly entertaining and can't wait to get the book (which seems to have more animals in it) and love the website as well. I did wonder though, if a mega suid fell over, could it get back on it's feet?

Dear racaryu

I am British, so I am not well qualified to give advice about American colleges. However, I would like to say this: The most important consideration is to choose a course that you can be really enthusiastic about. University courses demand a tremendous amount of hard work, and you will need the enthusiasm to keep you at it so that you can achieve your full potential. Your best chance of success is to take a course that interests you deeply, in a school that has first-rate faculty.

I would like to know what a Basilisk lizard, Komodo dragon, and the gliding lizard, (I think it's latin name is Draco Voloras), would look like 200 million years in the future. Would the gliding lizard look something like a Pteradon?

Dear griffinguy24
The factors that affect the course of evolution are so complicated that we cannot predict what will happen, we can only suggest possibilities. From the many possibilities that we thought of, we chose ones that seemed reasonably likely, and that we thought viewers would find interesting. For example, the course of human evolution suggests that to evolve the complex behaviour we have imagined for the babookari, in as little as 5 million years, we must start from an animal that already has a large brain. The primates seem the best candidates, and baboons are already evolving in that direction. We chose the most terrestrial of the South American monkeys because the disappearance of the Amazon forest would give it a great opportunity.
Crocodiles and mammals may survive, or they may disappear. We have chosen to suppose that they will go, but that is only one of the possibilities.
We thought hard about the toraton's size. There are two important points. First, bigger animals do not need proportionately more food. Roughly speaking, an animal that is 16 times as heavy as another needs only 8 times as much food. Secondly "cold-blooded" animals such as we have assumed the toraton to be need only 10-20% as much food as "warm-blooded" ones such as mammals, of the same size. Considering both these points, a toraton might eat no more than a present-day elephant. We have done the calculations.
There are only a few animals shown per habitat, because there is a limit to what a programme can show. We think the squids have great potential because they have more highly developed brains than any other invertebrates

Dear sageautumnspazdogz
Characteristics such as skin colour depend partly on heredity and partly on effects of the environment, such as sun tan. The important difference is that environmental effects are not inherited, so cannot contribute to evolution. The nineteenth century biologist Lamarck thought that they could, but his theory has long been discredited.
I agree with you very sadly, that human activity is having a disastrous effect on animals and plants. That is largely why we decided to imagine a future world without humans

Dear tobor3d

No, I did not see the previous show that you mention. I wonder whether as much care was taken in it, to get the science right, as in The Future is Wild. We got advice from a large number of world-class experts on different groups of animals and plants, and included nothing that the scientists said was impossible. Indeed, many of the animals and plants were invented by the scientific advisers, rather than the production team. All were checked by the scientists.

Dear cryptidmaster

The basilisk lizard, the komodo dragon and Draco volans (the gliding lizard) are all animals that we could have chosen as ancestors for our imagined future animals, but did not. There are far too many possibilities for us to choose them all! Draco could conceivably evolve into something capable of powered flight like a pterosaur, but because its wings are supported by extensions from the ribs, rather than by the fore legs, it would have to evolve flight muscles from the muscles of its chest.

Dear cltncblondeeagle
We chose to imagine a world in which the human race had gone extinct. Our reason was that if humans survive, they are likely to distort the course of evolution very severely. Sadly, human activities are causing mass extinction by habitat destruction and pollution. Without us, the rest of the living world could expect a far better future.

You ask about what we predict, but we are not claiming to predict the future. The factors that affect the course of evolution are too complex for it to be possible to predict far into the future. We are merely making suggestions that our team of scientists think possible. Many other possibilities exist

We cannot predict what will happen so far into the future. We can only suggest possibilities. We have chosen to imagine that the squids will be highly successful on land, and the fish in the air. Our scientific advisers think the terrestrial squids and flying fish that we have designed could evolve and become successful, but we cannot tell whether they will actually evolve.

Dear skybaxryder

I am indeed aware of Dougal Dixon's books, though I do not own copies. Dougal was a key member of the Future is Wild team, and drew a lot of the pictures on which the animations were based. A great many drawings went back and forth between him and me, when we were designing the animals.

Dear andyallosaurus

The production team are working on possibilities for future programmes, but so far as I know nothing definite has been decided so far. I think we are more likely to look in more detail at possible events within the next 200 million years, than to venture into the even more uncertain future beyond that.

Lungfish seem to have evolved in tropical swamps where air breathing was advantageous, because there was very little dissolved oxygen in the water. Flish would presumably evolve from something like present-day flying fish, which can glide, but (unlike flish) cannot flap their wings to power their flight.

The earth will survive, but the future of many animals and plants is uncertain if humans continue to destroy and pollute habitats. If the human race becomes extinct as we have imagined, within the next 5 million years, the prospects for other species will be much better.

Are humans done evolving? And if they aren't can they become weaker?

Dear retroqueen

Once a species has gone extinct, it is exceedingly unlikely to reappear. Genomes contain such huge numbers of genes that, once lost, the same combination is most unlikely to be reassembled. The "nightmarish" reptile that you mention, that has recently been discovered in rocks from dinosaur times, is believed to be a survivor, not a case of re-evolution. Similarly, the coelacanth has survived to the present day although its close relatives became extinct long ago.

Biomechanist, I just want to tell you that your answers are reminding me a lot of what my 7th grade science teacher told us once, something that will always stick with me. (I'm 28.) He said that "Earth will go on, there's no doubt about that. The question is whether it will last in a form that's hospitable to humans." He also talked a lot about humans making ourselves extinct. Do you think that's what we'll end up doing?

Also, thank you for answering the reptile question(s).

Mammals may continue to do well in the future, or (as we have imagined in the show) they may become virtually extinct. We cannot tell. Predicting the future course of evolution is like weather forecasting; experts can tell you what the weather will be like tomorrow, but they cannot predict whether it will rain this day next year. Like the weather, evolution is too complex for long-term prediction. We can only suggest possibilities.

All present-day phyla seem to have 500 million years ago, in an astonishingly productive phase of evolution that is not fully understood. Our programmes only look 200 million years into the future. I do not expect any new phylums in that time

Thinking 200 million years ahead has been quite a strain on our scientific imaginations. I am not going to try to think futher ahead. But if the squids do as well as we have imagined, they seem to have the potential to go further.

Dear kaputhesnowstalker

There are no facts about snowstalkers because, like our other future animals, they are purely imaginary. We scientists believe that the animals we have imagined are all possible, but we cannot know whether anything like them will actually evolve. I am delighted that you like the snowstalker, but my favourite is the (much less cuddly) megasquid.

Dear burning gundam

An awful lot can happen in 200 million years. If you had been an exceptionally intelligent early dinosaur, 200 million years ago, could you have imagined bats, whales or humans? We have done the calculations about muscular strength, that show that the megasquid could be strong enough to stand and walk. The common garden snail shows us how molluscs can evolve the capacity to breathe air. Squids have the best brains, among invertebrates, giving them great potential. We scientists see nothing impossible about the megasquid, but we cannot tell whether anything like that will actually evolve

And that is all it is. The likelihood of any of these animals appearing is slim at best. Evolution is a process of changing a current form to be more successful. Taking current stock of what the planet has diversity wise I see a whole different future, but that future might not be as entertaining. Once a dominant species (humans) appear they limit the evolution of other lessor species. It would only be safe to assume that the primates would go back to advancing when limitations have been removed.

Dear homer1987
Keratin beaks have been evolved by tortoises as well as by birds, and parrotfishes have bony beaks. There is no problem about a fish evolving a bird-like beak. We have imagined that the forest flish has lost the ability to swim.

When we invented the carakilla, we were thinking more about extinct giant predatory birds such as Phororhacos, than about velociraptors.

[This message was edited by mod_kelly on 01-03-03 at 05:23 PM.]

2 Questions:

1. What do you think humans will look like 200 million years from now, assuming we survive that long?

2. Why do you feel the earth will become inhospitable to humans? Does it have to do with our sun heating or cooling?

I loved the show. It's a much better question than the "what are aliens like" chestnut. There seem to be more realistic constraints, and so answers have to be much more clever.

I'm wondering how many animal ideas didn't make the final cut? Do you think any of the ones that did make the show are less probable? If you could remove one postulated creature from the show and replace her with another, which and which?

Thanks for your fine speculations; they made a fun television experience.

-brent

Dear dogdave

I have not seen Genesis Quest, but I made the megasquid walk as it does for two reasons. First, even with legs that thick they have to be vertical columns, directly under the body, to support that much weight. Secondly, they have to move in the order they do, to keep the animal stable without getting in each others' way.

Dear minigoo

I am not sure that I understand your question. If amphibians evolved from fish, reptiles from amphibians, primitive mammals from reptiles and us from primitive mammals (and scientists believe all that happened) we have fish, amphibians, reptiles and primitive mammals among our ancestors.

High intelligence requires a brain big enough to contain a very large number of nerve cells, so cannot be expected in a small animal. The insect design seems to be incapable of evolving to large size, for two reasons. First, the external skeleton that encloses a cockroach like a suit of armour would be terribly cumbersome for a large animal. Secondly, insects