BBC Earth
Image: uravms
If you’ve ever seen a lion or a polar bear on the hunt, you know how powerful predators can be. Life may well have been troubled by these killer species since its very beginning, over 3.5 billion years ago, and they have wrought untold death and destruction. As a result they get a bad press: even the word “predator” stems from the Latin term to rob or plunder. Small wonder that, when people imagine paradise, it normally doesn’t have any predators in it.
But this reputation misses something important: out of predatory destruction, constructive things can emerge. Predators may have played a big role in many of the biggest leaps forward in the history of life, from the origin of animals to the evolution of skeletons. Predation may even have helped shape the evolution of humanity itself, driving us to become ever more intelligent. Read more on the BBC Earth website…
