What animal is the best candidate for human-like intelligence evolving. You can take any animal, even from the past. Whatever animal you choose, you have to explain it's reasons for evolving intelligence and then explain how they would act on Earth. Give them a "history". You can erase humans from the slate if you want to, but it's not nescessary. One more thing, it's got to be possible. It couldn't be a single celled creature. Remain serious.

My choice is for a dinasour evolved from the velociraptor, or the deinochysus. Both were raptors looking almost the same. They were the smartest of the dinasours and they were able to lift objects up, and manipulate them as well. They had the longest lifespans of the dinasours, 40-60 years. There is some evidence showing that they may have been "warm-blooded". In this case, the great extinction did happen and many of the dinasours died out, but the velocirpator, survived by migrating to more hospitable places and living in caves. They also developed the ability to eat plant matter, although not as a main part of their diet. They survived, until it was finally safe to leave their caves for long periods of time, when they emerged, they were evolved. Over the course of their stay in the caves, feeding off of fast breeding mammals, and some lizards, they had evolved ways to pass the time. They were already an intelligent species, and so they had to combat boredom in the caves. They had evolved sophisticated language, and a means of writing. They were now sapient. They were now a new species. Saurosapien. They built a great civilization and mammals didn't evolve much during this time, until the ice age. The Saurosapiens hadn't anticipated the cold weather, and they hadn't built any means of warming. In fact, they didn't even build building to live in. Why would they need them? They did however have huge temples and monuments. During the ice age they were hard pressed to survive, having great difficulty finding food in the cold weather (remember, there were no large mammals) and so they retreated again, into their caves. This time they mined deeper into the caves, discovering different metals and using them to create different tools, and some weapons as well (they didn't need many, as the curved claw on their feet was deadly). When they emerged, there was a new species of mammal. Us. We had evolved from rodent-like creatures to homo sapien quickly because of different, intelligence inspiring factors. When the saurosapiens met with us, we were behind them, but we quickly caught up, having someone to look up to. A great many wars occured between us and the saurosapiens, the first of which occured through communication difficulties. In the end we managed to create an uneasy peace, with human owned territory and suarosapien territory well-defined. We continue into the space age, as saurosapien and human continue to battle for supremacy.

Good?

I vote for the dolphins and the whales. I think they are extremely inteligent and social animals.

Ha!

You know if human kind continues to search for alike intelligence we going to end up in credits for the next terminator movie.

This film is dedicated to all the dumbass mother.....s who made it happen!

I wonder what makes people think that animals are going towards human kind of intelligence. For crying out loud a damn cat is more intelligent than a ten year old.
Just because they don’t want to accept and understand our pathetic technology or solve problems we set them it does not mean they are dumb.

Just watch the Discovery channel. Man is it possible to balance nature any better. Hell if it wasn't for our untimely appearance out of the cave, thinking we are this planets best evolutionary achievement, the rest of our 'less intelligent' brothers would never have to worry.

Do not make the mistake of thinking there ever going to be another mistake in the evolutionary chain of events, humans are trouble enough.

Guys, give them a history! Give them a story! Make it interesting!

I think we underestimate the intelligence of animals here. Dolphins may well be already as intelligent, if not more so than us, the main difference lies in their inability to use tools. This is what gives humans the edge, being able to use tools as leverage to help in our environment. Give dolphins opposable thumbs, and i think you'll be quite surprised of what they can achieve.

But in answer to the question, dolphins would probably be the most intelligent animal, but for 'human-like' intelligence, id have to say apes, because they are our closest ancestor.

The next animals to evolve human like intelligence would be:


The Racoons

They know how to open things. They can use their little hands in very interesting ways. I don't think a chimpanzee on its own could unzip a backpack, take out a snickers bar, and open it up and eat it. More than likely a chimp would tear the backpack open with its teeth and just bite into the snickers bar, paper and all.


Think about it people! Now get out there and adopt a racoon. The more we engage them, the more friendly they will be.....they make good hats too

I am not sure if we sould be so readily willing to compare our intelligence to animals. Where is the intelligence in killing and destroying the land that you need to survive off of. anyways.

if i were to compare us to another species. i would say army ants they kill and strip the land they walk across with out a second thought although they are greatly exagerated in the media. what us humans do to each other is worst.

we cant make it through some chats without flaming people most of the time. just like animals, fighting for dominance in the wild. trying to make someone else look bad to cover up our own downfalls and make us feel better.

I do agree with the dolphins thing but this is supposed to be speculative fiction. Make up a small story about the dolpins evolution of "hands". You know, the interesting thing about dolphins is that they do have a language. They use a very complex language. It's is comparable to our own. Also, dolphins are able to project a sound so as another dolphin sees an image. They don't have to explain abstract ideas to each other, because they can send sound images to each other. They also have ultrasound. They can see inside of eachother if they want to. They use it to find out who is healthy and what emotions others are feeling. Their cerebral cortex which is where abstract thought occurs, is larger then ours. I know dolphins have an intelligence comparable to our own or more, at the present. Now make up a story for it, like my saurosapien. It doesn't have to be long, but it should be there cause these types of stories are very interesting.

nice story with the evolutionary raptors LOL

I would have to say that the next step in evolution, if not us, would be marine and we would most likely see a new species emerge from dolphins...imagine if land animals never evolved and the only evolution was occuring in the ocean, at what point would a species evolve that could actually build things from its environment?
would it be bi-ped like us? or mabye an advanced form of crustacean...like a crab with hands...

Dr. Zoidberg....

I hope that the next intelligent life form will not be as stupid as human kind.

Not sure about coming to the level of human intelligence but Dogs have come a long way Apparently this dog is being studied because it understands close to 200 descriptive words, which is more than even primates.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/06/10...e.ap/index.html

Tis a sad state when somone can come up with 200 different commands to give to a dog.