Humans may trigger the methane bomb if we have not done so already. Life will be pushed to the margins as it has been before in the great dyings of the past if that happens.
It is hard to imagine there won't be a mountainside somewhere where squirrels won't survive. Life then again radiates across the globe from a small core of survivors as it has before. Some squirrels leave the trees in a land free of predators and become something like a new buffalo and as large as the ones exterminated 150 or so years ago when the American government starved the Indians out..
Others squirrels might develop opposable thumbs and learn to make stone tools. Others squirrels might become predators eating bushy tailed buffalo.
In 10 - 20 million years life will be as diverse as it was before humans came along.
JMG is wrong. For anything to descend from anything, there have to be niches that are not occupied. Otherwise there won't be evolution to fill niches because they are occupied.
There must be a great dieoff to clear niches for anything to be in charge. But if there is a great dieoff squirrels are more likely to survive than raccoons are.
QuoteNiche is a term that defines an organism's role within an ecosystem: its food, shelter, and its behavioral role.
It comes back to the methane bomb. An 11 degrees rise in temperature won't let coons survive.
Not directly related, it involves dogs and raccoons. The coons living in my back yard are doing fine.
QuoteA man can walk into hell with both eyes wide open. But even the devil can't fool a dog.