If Humans Never Appeared, What Creature Rules Earth?

If you were to look at Earth from the International Space Station at night, you’d be able to see the light of the cities from space! That’s how big our impact as a species is. There are huge multicultural cities all around the world. We’ve built buildings SO high, they nearly disappear out of sight. Cities are built from the ground up for thousands and thousands of people to live in.

But, oh? What’s this? What a beautiful monkey. What are you doing there, buddy? Do you want that banana? Yeah, it looks delicious.

Be careful now, don’t fall down that tree. Oops! Boy, nature can be so brutal sometimes. I’ll bet it didn’t wake up thinking it was going to become a lion’s breakfast.

What? No humans? Where’d they all go? Looks like when that monkey fell from the tree, it created a chain of events that led to no humans ever existing on Earth. I know what this is, we must be in an alternate universe. Well, let’s skip a few thousand years ahead. What does Earth look like?

Humans have altered about 50% or more of the planet’s surface. So there aren’t going to be any cities or landscapes previously shaped by us in this reality, there’s not going to be a human touch at all. The Earth now seems to be an animal paradise. They’re everywhere! These animals that were previously only found in Africa are now all over different continents.

There are lions roaming free in America. Oh, and look. In Europe, there are rhinos, elephants, wolves... wow, MOOSE! Even bears are here. Since there are no humans taking up most of Earth’s space, mammals are now free to be everywhere.

Well, you know... different mammals than us. There’s a huge diversity of them too. Earth has become what seems to be an expansion of the Africa we know today, in terms of animal species.

You can see large mammals too. Giant sloths, saber-tooths, and even mastodons are now walking the Earth like in the olden times. The reason why our Earth isn’t like this is that humans take up a lot of the available space with their structures.

For example, the reason why there is so much animal diversity in Africa in our universe isn’t that the continent is just suited for animals to thrive. It’s mostly because we haven’t been too active in a big part of the continent. Our ancestors had a lot to do with the extinction of large mammals. Ice Age wasn’t the only culprit there.

On our Earth, humans are the intelligent life form. How about on this planet? As you might know, natural selection is what guides evolution. This, combined with random mutations we can observe in some species, suggests that even without humans on Earth, there’s a chance for intelligent life to develop. So, primates are now the dominant life form. Or maybe the meerkats evolved into a dominant species.

The climate on this Earth is also cooler than ours. That’s because there are no greenhouse gases.
According to NASA, the current Earth warming trend is likely the result of human activity since the 1950s. This means the increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are the reason why our planet warms up.

Greenhouse gases are called this because, just like a greenhouse, they trap heat. They let the sunlight pass through the atmosphere, but the heat it brings doesn’t leave our atmosphere because of them. They’re a good thing because otherwise, life on Earth wouldn’t even be possible, but because now they’re too abundant, it causes the planet to warm more than it should. Let’s go back to our alternate Earth.

In the water, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is still fully intact! And it’s still the largest coral reef system there is, as well as the biggest living organism on the planet, just like ours! This new Earth is also full of trees, and lush ones at that. Greenery everywhere!

All sorts of trees exist and are home to all the different animals on the planet. And since there’s no deforestation, the planet’s lungs, the Amazon Rainforest, is able to thrive and is looking more alive and vibrant than ever.

But say, what if humans were to show up on this Earth right now? Maybe this year, or the year before. They certainly wouldn’t be the dominant species immediately and would probably struggle at the very beginning. The evolution and learning process would be a slow one until they find themselves at the top. They have to adapt to their new home.

This would be like traveling to around 130,000 years ago in our reality. To a place where modern humans, or Homo sapiens, had just shown up. Humans back then weren’t new. The only new thing about them was that they evolved into Homo sapiens. It wasn’t like we were dropped off from a spaceship onto Earth or anything like that.

But in this alternative reality, that’s exactly what happened. A bunch of humans were dropped from the sky on Earth. Now, they must learn everything from the ground up. They need to figure out how to survive and thrive in their new environment. They have to hunt for their own food, and they need to take what they can get from the planet. Much like we did 130,000 years ago.

These new humans are nomads. They can’t settle in one exact place because they need to explore and understand their surroundings, just like the animals that surround them. As their groups become larger, they split into smaller ones to find new places suited to build their homes or even a place where survival might be easier.

Since it’s been a while since they arrived at this new Earth, they’ve explored and found themselves more comfortable in their new setting. Their tools are better developed, and home-like structures, like huts, finally, start appearing. 50,000 years ago, we developed our language. These humans also develop their own because they need to communicate better with each other. With language, they become more and more organized and are able to make better plans for their future.

All dogs come from wolves, and there are two theories of how it might have happened that wild beasts became human’s best friends. One theory says early humans somehow ended up capturing wolf pups and kept them as pets, and over time they would gradually domesticate wolves. Another theory states that wolves actually domesticated themselves. It’s called: survival of the friendliest.

Because both wolves and humans were hunters, wolves probably also figured out they would have benefits if they stuck around humans instead of competing directly with them. Some wolves were fearful and aggressive toward humans. Others might have been friendlier, which also likely gave them access to hunters’ food supplies.

As time passes, modern human behavior starts showing up. Fixed homes begin to appear in places that benefit people. Maybe next to a river or places where the soil is fertile — this way they’re also able to become farmers and develop agriculture. As they settle down, communities start arising too. Since they are very social beings, it’s only natural they’re drawn to one another.

Soon, humans are all over the planet, spread around the continents, with communities and families of their own, and don’t forget the pets. The planet’s landscape shifts like it did in our reality, to accommodate the needs of humans. Cultures are developed. Rivalry begins.

They start pushing each other to great lengths. Thousands and thousands more years go by, and this human society starts to look a lot like the one we have today. Still, things might have happened a different way. There might have already been an intelligent species they would have had to compete with, and then their progress would probably have staggered a bit.

Maybe a society could emerge where different intelligent life forms would be able to peacefully co-exist. When you enter a coffee shop, a meerkat might be your barista. Your landlords could be a couple of gorilla siblings. Or when you go to a barbershop, a primate that’s only wearing a barber jacket would be the one to cut your hair. If not, it’s likely things would end up the same as our reality. Humans would not be the most numerous species on earth, but they would still be the most impactful one.