After we're gone . . . Life goes on

Anteaters, it is believed, have evolved from other mammals at least twelve separate times, and they can tolerate—perhaps coordinate—greater fluctuations in body temperature than we can.

Moreover, there are lots of ants to eat (currently, around twenty quadrillion in ±14,000 species, conservatively estimated).

I find this hopeful, don't you? A million years from now, anteater savants* might well wonder what on earth we were:

Hail, Vermilingua!** Hail from Homo sap,

An arrogant two-leggèd, big-brained chap

Who mighty marvels wrought, and took the rap

For all he'd bought, filling the world with crap.

*Interesting here that depictions of the ancient Egyptian god Set show him with what appears to be the head of an aardvark, an African species similar to the Latin American anteaters.

**”Worm tongues,” the scientific name of the suborder to which the four extant species of anteater belong.

Note: Pet shops in Virginia are not allowed to sell anteaters—it's illegal to own them as pets.

Thursday, September 18, 2025