Which species's evolution is most successful?

May not be human beings. Most intelligent is not equal to most successful evolution.

 

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What do you mean by successful?
That would make it an easier question to answer, successful at what?

 

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Most sucessful to spread its genetics.

 

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You could argue that "most successful" is equivalent to "most stable". That certainly applies if you consider the success of individiual genes.

Either way, bacteria are the winners by a long shot. Cyanobacteria have been replicating away for maybe 4 billion years virtually unchanged, and are still found across the globe. I'd consider that to be a pretty good benchmark for success!

 

We'll have to wait until the next extinction event to find out. Hope we make the cut.

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The cockroach and termite have been around for millions of years before humans ever were here according to anthropologists so they are some of the best adapted creatures on this planet to survive anything. Roaches have also been irradiated to more than 5 times what humans can stand and nothing happens to them. Perhaps a genetic crossbreeding will happen betwen humans and roaches to have something that can travel through space without worrying about radiation. Could call them roachmen.

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I would have to say the longs living species would be ranked as most successful as it did not need to change anymore. Perhaps cyanobacteria and archea or for the animal kingdom maybe the jellyfish.

 

I think the precursors to mitochondria were pretty successful in spreading their genetics.

 

Rats are also pretty successful. They can adapt really fast and because of that they are hard to kill and can survive in very hostile surroundings.

 

the mitochondria have evolved so much with it host that most of the DNA to support it has migrated to the in the host genome. You might as well say ribosome are the most successful species as it is even more popular then mitochondria.

 

That's not true.
Although there is some introgression into the nuclear genome of some mitochondrial genes, very few genes I might add, and most are psudogenes, the mitochondrial genome remains very distinct and unique.

 

there is a japanese (?) film called "Parasite Eve" where mitochondrial are sentinent and had a plan to use humans as their carriers (even before we were evolved as homo sapiens) to use our evolution for their own agenda , and through millenia mitochondria evolved with our species (and helped it by giving extra energy) and now they want to get rid of their hosts because now we are slowening down their (mitochondria) evolution, it's a great film

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with that being said I agree that "most sucessful to spread its genetics" bacteria indeed would meet your requirements. mitochondria are too dependent on their hosts. Most bacteria doesn't need a living host environment and it can even live in a lava stream.

 

was parasite eve a movie too? I've played the video game. I bet it would be hard to find. Was it live action or animated.

Back to topic, by the logic of roaches being successful, you would also need to add sharks and crocodiles.

As to length of time without adaptation, what about tube-worms and other fauna around the underwater chimneys. It is probable that their types have been around a long time too. Are they the most successful? They have a very limited range of environment.

On rodents, I have seen a lot of speculation on who would win if we actually had to compete with rodents. They didn't evolve until we were already far advanced.

In the end, only time will tell.

 

Parasaito Ivu -the movie
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I know that this thread says not to discuss humans, but I have one argument
All (?) the other organisms abid the nature and evolve as the nature changes to fit it's requirements
we however (be it good or bad) have evolved to such a level that we are able to change the environment itself, not to say that we have the ability to change our genetic code!!! (if we throw out ethics, etc)

 

Ants change the environment, termites change the environment, elephants sure as hell change the environment. We, however, seem to understand a bit more the nature of change. Notice, I say a bit.

 

true, I had a thought about ants also when I posted, but they can't deliberatly cause global warming or nuke the planet by will (not saying that it's something good)

 

I'm confused. ok, I agree with you, it's just another step in changing the environment.
bacteria rule the show

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ants can't destroy the planet. i say that's better. in that sense, human evolution went terribly wrong, since they may geopardise their own survival as well as survival of other animals, plants, etc.

i think successful evolution is about ensuring survival of the species, not spreading genes.

yup, bacteria it was, and always will be.

 

paulsamuel,

the mitochondria have evolves such a symbiosis with is host that might as well consider them the same organism. Yes the mitochondria does still have its own genome (in humans a tiny ~16570bp) but that does not mean it separate organism.