Animals that can become sapient and develop civilization?

[RJ 17]

You could argue that the societies created by bees and ants are actually more advanced than humans. There is evidence of a heirarchy, they obviously communicate effectively and operate as a unit

Bees and ants have a far larger impact on the earth than we do as human beings. If humans were wiped out the world would carry on (infact it would probably be better) where as without bees or ants the world would probably fail to exist

Well I didn't have to look far before my suggestion got ninja'd.

Yeah, no sense asking "which creature will form the next civilization" when we've already got creatures forming civilizations right along with us.

Oh, and lets not forget that there's even some species of spiders in South America that live in colonies too, building massive web-cities in the treetops. That'd be fun...giant sapient spider-people. Have fun sleeping tonight. :3

 

[Benni88]

Cephalopoda, notably cuttlefish. Cold blooded, manipulatory appendages, high level of communication. They're my bet .

 

[Heronblade]

I think there have been enough guesses here that I can don't have to add yet another. One thing I'd like to point out is that I think as far as reaching our stage of civilization again, assuming we go extinct or something, the odds are pretty much null.

I thinking about metalworking, which we could only have discovered because copper and iron used to exist in seams on the earth's surface and is pretty much all gone now. What's left is deep beneath the earth, where you could only find it if you knew what you were looking for. Them elephants better get really good at recycling if they ever hope to get out of the Stone Age.

Uh, copper may be relatively tough to find these days, but iron is not. In spite of the millions of tons of the stuff we have removed and used, iron is still the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust, and the most common element in the Earth overall. Also, we'd actually be leaving behind more metal on the surface than there was for us to find. Unless of course you think everything we ever built will simply disappear, leaving nothing behind whatsoever.

Frankly, the relative lack of easy energy sources is the greater hurdle for any newly sapient species to jump. if there is no easy access to oil and/or coal, they just might be screwed. Wood fires just don't cut it for processing advanced metals, which are required for a great deal of our achievements, including drilling for oil, not to mention harnessing the more advanced energy sources we've come up with.

Oil and coal are both renewable resources, but it will take a very very long time for replenished reserves to get back to levels that are easy to access from the surface without specialized equipment.

 

[Grach]

Deep-sea anglerfish. Just to see what a society with parasitic males would be like.

Speaking seriously, this is a difficult question, since imagining a civilization that doesn't work exactly like ours is kind of hard. Especially since we don't have a very solid definition of the concepts of consciense and mind.

Whatever. My money is on crows or at least a corvid. Because a civilization like that would be so cute <3.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Sharks.

They basically already have a society (or at least some species, who have been found to develop personalities, and societies).

Besides, sharks have never evolved, or only very insignificantly. Sharks are effectively the "ideal" animal. They eat, hunt, breed, eat, hunt, breed..

it'd be interesting if all sharks had a society or a hierarchy of some sort. Like ants.

 

[Heronblade]

Sharks.

They basically already have a society (or at least some species, who have been found to develop personalities, and societies).

Besides, sharks have never evolved, or only very insignificantly. Sharks are effectively the "ideal" animal. They eat, hunt, breed, eat, hunt, breed..

it'd be interesting if all sharks had a society or a hierarchy of some sort. Like ants.

Their status as an "ideal" apex predator actually makes them somewhat ineligible for this consideration. They haven't evolved in any significant manner because they have not needed to, and they are unlikely to ever need to. Likewise, they don't have a need to develop socially, nor to develop in terms of adaptive intelligence, and so they probably never will do either.

Oh sure, they'll likely be enjoying themselves long after we're gone, but they'll still just be big toothy fish.

There are not any creatures that cannot become sapient given the right conditions, but the ideal candidate would be one that uses intellect and/or social skills to deal with their problems, and whose niche can be threatened in a manner that causes them to rely on those tendencies more and more.