Post by xystophoros on May 6, 2017 14:49:15 GMT
I would really love to see a saber-toothed cat and see how closely it resembles modern cats, big and small. It would be fascinating to watch it move, hunt, groom itself -- all the activities we relate with cats.
I'd also love to see those huge birds which were quasi-dinosaurs. Imagine a 12-foot carnivorous bird running at you full steam, ready to use its sharp beak to tear you in half.
Hominids would be fascinating, from Neanderthals to Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis and everything in between. On the one hand, I think it would be incredible to study them -- and on the other hand, part of me would want to take them for an 80 mph drive in a Tesla while blasting obnoxious music like dubstep, and watch their heads explode. Or take them up 10,000 feet in a plane and see what happens lol.
Mostly, though, I hope we hold on to what we have. There are only some 4,000 wild tigers left in the entire world, elephant populations have been whittled down by 90%, and orangutans are on the verge of extinction because they have almost no habitat left.
And all three of those are our fault:
- Idiots kill tigers because they believe in "traditional Chinese medicine," and think ingesting elixirs with powdered tiger bones will make them mighty, or eating tiger penis will make them virile. Thus, poachers provide.
- Other idiots, also mostly Chinese, fuel the elephant poaching industry because elephant ivory has become a status symbol among the newly monied in China, one of the preferred ways for idiots to show off their wealth.
- Finally, do you know how you get an orangutan baby? You pay $45,000 to a poacher who shoots or hacks to death an orangutan mom in order to steal the terrified and traumatized baby from her desperate, dying arms. It's fucking brutal. Those babies are then brought into the homes of extremely wealthy humans, usually the bored wives of Russian oligarchs or Chinese businessmen. Orangutan babies will stay with their moms for at least 8 years in the wild, but as human pets they're usually chained by the neck and dressed up with accessories, like a doll, from the time they're just a few weeks old.