Unfinished Kris

Oxford Languages defines “animal” as “a living organism that feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized sense organs and nervous system and able to respond rapidly to stimuli.”

Doesn’t seem like a super high bar. You have to be able to eat, sense, and react. Even a slug can handle all that, as can I… most days.

In the kingdom Animalia, aka the animal kingdom, Homo sapiens are a species under the class Mammalia and the order Primates — in the same family as chimps, gorillas and orangutans.

Homo sapiens are better known as “humans” — y’know… “people”. If you’re reading this, you’re probably a human, or a person. You could be a chimp with an iPad using text-to-speech — but if you understand what you’re hearing, you’re likely not a chimp, so I will assume if you’ve gotten this far, you are a human person — and likely a patient one, since you’ve gotten this far without finding a point.

The point of all of this definition and classification is that we humans are simply animals, just like all of the other mammals and reptiles and insects and all of the other classes of animals on the planet. We have specific and expected behaviors, just like all of our family members do. We use tools. We live in family groups. We eat a varied diet of meats and plants. We create shelters to live in. We care for our young. We communicate. We mourn our dead. We grow hair in weird places.

But something makes us so much more …important than all of the other creatures in the Kingdom of Animalia and even the members of our own Hominidae family…. right? Our opposable thumbs and big ole brains are traits that certainly make us stand out. 

However, whether you measure the actual largest brain or the largest brain-to-body ratio in animals, we humans still aren’t BMOC. (Big Mammal on Campus) Porpoises and elephants have us beat in the straight-up large category, and the puny little tree shrew kicks our ass with ratios.

As far as the opposable thumb, we humans actually share that oh-so-exclusive appendage with many other primates, some frogs, lots of birds, koalas, opossums, and pandas. Many dinosaurs even had opposable digits, and we all know how things turned out for them. 

Okay, yes, it’s true that human thumbs are longer and MORE opposable than all of the other animals’ hardly-useful thumbs. We also drive bigger trucks. 

The other animals are just so incoherent, lawless, amoral, poor… and naked. We humans have words. We have a system of laws. We have norms and standards. We have money. And we have pants!

Yeah.. it’s gotta be the pants.

Ants can carry 50 times their own body weight.

Dolphins have built-in sonar, which, among other things, allows them to see babies in-utero.

Silkworms produce cocoons of silk in which they transform into butterflies.

Whales create sounds that can travel 10,000 miles.

Squirrels see in slow motion.

Chameleons are born with invisibility cloaks.

The octopus regenerates any arms it happens to lose being a curious idiot.

Birds can fucking fly.

::hikes pants up Barney Fife-style::

But , hey, we… WE… wear pants.