In the cracks in our roadways there are bacteria at work devouring asphalt.
There are bright orange fungi that crawl across the forest floor. There
are spiders in mid-air at 35,000 feet. Ants exhibit behavior remarkably
similar to our own civilization. There are fish that eat birds. There are
bacteria and microbes that only live on humans and without some of them
we would die. There are bacteria that thrive in boiling water. There are
birds that fly under water. There are flying snakes and rodents. There
are mites that live on your eyeballs. There are mites that live on fleas.
There are worms eleven feet long, clams two feet across and giant blind
crabs living in the deepest darkest oceans living next to black smoking
fumeroles. There are ice worms that live inside glaciers.
There are still mountains no one has climbed. Some mountains are growing.
Some mountains explode and some melt. Some of them are moving. Some are
in the process of creation. The "rafts" of land that we are all
riding on are in a constant process of creation, as molten magma is pushed
through the earth's crust, creating new crust while somewhere else part
of the earth's crust is subsiding back into the earth's core to be remelted.
There is no part of the ocean floor that is older than 200 million years.
Most of the continents are older than that.
Almost all life on Earth exists below 2000 ft. above sea level. Almost all humans live at or near bodies of water. Humans require lots of fresh water. Most of the composition of the human body is water. Most of the face of the Earth is covered with water but it is poisonous to humans. Civilization requires enormous amounts of fresh water. Aside from what is locked up frozen in the polar ice-caps, there is very little fresh water on Earth.
We humans build our dwellings on moving landscapes, fault zones, volcanic
and tidal areas and flood plains. We build bridges, hospitals, schools,
dams and nuclear power plants on top of known active earthquake faults.
We build on the best farm land and flood our deserts to grow crops.
The largest flower in the world has the fragrance of rotten meat. There
are plants that eat meat. There is a giant flower that only blooms once
every 400 or so years. There are over 36,000 kinds of orchids and more are
discovered every year. New ones are also being created in greenhouses. The
tallest trees in the world only grow in a narrow strip of coastline in California.
There are plants that prey on other plants. There are plants that "eat"
stone. There are plants that can split giant boulders. There are plants
that have no roots and don't live in soil. Some plants are toxic.
Apes have been recorded having homosexual sex. They've also been observed
practicing cannibalism. Apes have four hands. Some monkeys have fingerprints
on the ends of their tails. Apes have attacked villages full of humans,
inflicting bodily harm and causing property damage. Apes have been observed
making and using primitive tools. In laboratories they've become addicted
to cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.
Dolphins have larger brains than humans. Whales have toes. There are
fish that fly. There are fish that "walk" on land. There a fish
that climb trees. Some creatures, like insects and shellfish, have their
bones on the outside. Some creatures, like jellyfish, have no bones or flesh.
Fish in the very deepest parts of the ocean generate their own light. Electric
eels generate enough voltage to kill a man.
Man, allegedly the most intelligent of all the life forms on this planet,
is the least able to survive outside his civilization. Civilization is a
zoo in a jungle.