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Hierarchy of Animals
THE RELATIVE HIERARCHY OF ANIMALS
Are human beings worthy of being considered the highest form of animal life?
Whether or not human beings can fairly be considered the highest form of animal life depends largely on how one chooses to define the objective hierarchical criteria. If one proposes that relative hierarchical status is determined by the range of sensory modalities with which an organism perceives and interacts with the physical world, then mammalian species that have evolved ultrasonic communication or the cerebral capacity to generate and interpret sonar transmission, such as bats and dolphins, would outrank human beings (Berry, 1996).
If one defines relative hierarchy by life span, then reptiles such as sea tortoises and numerous avian species such as parrots occupy the highest position on the scale of life on Earth. If one defines hierarchical relationships based on duration of existence on Earth, then the highest forms of existing biological life are either...
In that respect, and if one considers extinct species as well, then the highest forms of animal life on Earth are certainly to be found amongst the dinosaurs, who thrived on Earth thousands of times as long as Homo sapiens, and hundreds of times as long as even the very earliest hominid precursors to Homo sapiens (Wenke, 1999).
Finally, depending on how one wishes to define animal, microscopic bacteria might qualify as the highest form of biological life in the history of life, since some types have existed tens of times as long as even the longest lived dinosaurs, and are more numerous, still today, than all of the other forms of animal life combined (Berry, 1996).
Homo sapiens is clearly the highest form of animal life, to the degree one values intellectual achievement and cooperation. No other animal has developed the…
References
Berry, A. (1996) Galileo and the Dolphins. Wiley & Sons: New York
Moussaieff Mason, J., McCarthy, S. (1995) When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals. Delacorte: New York
Wenke, R. (1999) Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind's First Three Million
Years. Oxford University Press: New York
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