by aldente » Tue 13 Sep 2005, 00:56:06
Insects comprise the most diverse group of animals on the earth, with over 800,000 species described—more than all other animal groups combined: "Indeed, in no one of her works has Nature more fully displayed her exhaustless ingenuity," Pliny exclaimed. Insects may be found in nearly all environments on the planet, although only a small number of species have adapted to life in the oceans where crustaceans tend to predominate.
In other words they did rule the world before mammals and will after us (human being are nothing but a type of animal- only uneducated wacko middle age religious type of guys would deny that fact).
Definition of mammal:
The mammals are the class of vertebrate animals characterized by the presence of mammary glands, which in females produce milk for the nourishment of young; the presence of hair or fur; and which have endothermic or "warm-blooded" bodies. The brain regulates endothermic and circulatory systems, including a four-chambered heart. Mammals encompass some 5500 species, distributed in about 1200 genera, 152 families and up to 46 orders, though this varies depending on the classification scheme adopted.
Note the difference between 800.000 species and 5500! Besides the ability to adopt to changing environments.
You might wonder about fish, since they are not mammals and yet such a large group of higher developed live forms. They are the original vertebrates which lead to what became mammals once oxygen, which was and still is a hard to deal with substance for inhabitants of the oceans eventually became managable:
A fish is a poikilothermic (cold-blooded)* water-dwelling vertebrate with gills. There are over 27,000 species of fish, making them the most diverse group of vertebrates. Taxonomically, fish are a paraphyletic group whose exact relationships are much debated; a common division is into the jawless fish (class Agnatha, 75 species including lampreys and hagfish), the cartilaginous fish (class Chondrichthyes, 800 species including sharks and rays), with the remainder classed as bony fish (class Osteichthyes).
Conclusion: Humans might dissapear, so might mammals alltogether, insects on the other hand have the highest pool of species and therefore the best chances of survival.