How Will Animals Look 250 Million Years From Now?

angkor writes "'How will Earth look 5 million, 100 million, even 200 million years from now?' Fantasic and fun speculation from Animal Planet. It's the work of Dougal Adams, who started this idea years ago in the out-of-print After Man: A Zoology of the Future."

Comments

Frankly, I didn't like it

[Lobsang]

First of all, let me state I'm no scientist. But some stuff just doesn't seem reasonable:

• FLISH (for FLying fISH) - Does it make much sense that an animal that cannot generate its own heat would spend an enourmous amount of calories flying? Also, is there a fish that can fly like a bird these days or any indication in that sense? The contrary is pretty common (penguins, et al).
  
  
• Giant Squid roaming the forests - Owhhh, C'mon! What possible advantage is there in it? They can get all the food they need, without the hassle of vertebrae, in the ocean.
  
  
• Sharks with flashing colors - This one was just too bad! Why would a shark need flashing things on the side of their bodies? According to the program, to "guide the other sharks and hunt in packs". C'mon... We all know light gets filtered rather rapidly by water. Wouldn't sound be a better choice?
  
  
• Chrome Spiders herding the last mammal on earth - Yes, you heard it right. BTW, what's the point in a animal being silver chrome in color? To shine the sunlight and attract the predators?
  

I also disliked the concept that most animals will get bigger. That seems contrary to what we've observed in the last million years. Animals like Sharks and Alligators have survived millenia without many changes. What makes one think the radical changes proposed in the program would occur?

Funny thing is that I had my nephew (11 years old) watching the program with me. He laughed most of the time and thought the ideas were mostly ludicrous. And see, he's 11...