After Man: A Zoology of the Future

  In the book After Man: A Zoology of the Future (1981), Scottish paleontologist and geologist Dougal Dixon presents his hypotheses of how life would evolve 50 million years from now. He assumes that Europe and Africa would eventually fuse, closing up the Mediterranean Sea. Asia and North America would collide and close up the Bering Strait. South America would split off from Central America. Australia would collide with southern Asia, uplifting a mountain range. Finally, parts of eastern Africa would split off to form a new island which he called Lemuria. Other volcanic islands have been added, such as the Pacaus Archipelago and Batavia.

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Several other books have been released and internet sites created with this thought in mind. Paleontologist Peter Ward wrote another book on a different perspective on future evolution, one with humans intact as a species. This book is called Future Evolution. Dixon's later work Man After Man also includes man. In 2002, a program on Animal Planet called The Future Is Wild advances further using more precise studies of biomechanics and future geological phenomena based on the past.

Creatures of After Man: A Zoology of the Future

Anchorwhip, a venomous rainforest tree snake that uses an anchor-like tail to snatch birds and small mammals.

Angler Heron, a heron that creates a fish pond and baits it to attract fish.

Bardelot[1], a giant saber-toothed predatory rat.

Beaver, a surviving rodent species. Unlike our beaver, this new beaver has its legs fused with its tail, like current day pinnipeds.

Bootie Bird, a large hawk-like descendant of crows.

Broadbeak, a giant predatory songbird

Chirit, an inchworm-like rodent descended from squirrels.

Chiselhead, an inchworm-like rodent with massive incisors for chiseling through live trees.

Chuckaboo, a marsupial monkey.

Clatta, a sloth-like prosimian primate with an armored tail as protection against predators.

Cleft-Back Antelope, a primitive-looking antelope from Lemuria. It has two ridges on its back, leaving a furrow along its spine. It is covered with warts that attract flies - and a species of tickbird. This tick bird feasts on these flies and it makes its nest in the furrow of the antelope's back.

Common Pine Chuck, a bird in which the two sexes look like different species. Males are red with massive beaks for eating pine cones. The female is green with a slender beak for snatching insects and carrion.

Desert Leaper, a large hopping rodent and the largest desert mammal on Earth. It can store so much fat in its body that it can lose half its body weight without any problems.

Desert Shark, a bald sausage-shaped predatory descendant of shrew-like animals.

Desert Spickle, a necter-eating spiny mammal that sips from desert flowers.

Distarterops[2], a marine walrus-like rat with tusks and a claw on one of its limbs.

Falanx[3], a wolf-like predatory rat.

Fatsnake, a venomous viper-like snake with an enlarged tail, related to cobras.

Fin Lizard, a two-legged lizard with enlarged skin flaps on its neck and tail, increasing its surface area.

Flightless Auk, a penguin-like descendant of auks. It forms a chain of different linages that breed with one another. However some races of auks are so different that they cannot interbreed.

Flightless Guinea Fowl, an ostrich-like Guinea fowl with a large throat sac.

Flooer, a flightless bat with a nose and ears that imitate the designs of native flowers.

Flower-Faced Potoo, a strange descendant of South American potoos that spends most of its time on the ground. Its wide mouth imitates the patterns of the native flowers, attracting insects. These potoos migrate seasonally because the flowers it imitates do not come until after rainstorms.

Flunkey[4], a gliding monkey.

Gandimot, a crow-like bird that behaves and is descended from magpies (although it resembles a skua and lay eggs in nest of other birds).

Ghole, a bone-eating scavenging mammal.

Giantala, a giant ground sloth-like kangaroo.

Gigantelope, an elephant-like descendant of antelope and the largest listed land animal in the book, weighing 10 tons. It comes in two types: a massive bald tropical species and a woolly polar species. Both have massive plow-like horns used for digging up roots. The rundihorn is a rhinoceros-like gigantelope but instead of plow-like horns, it has four cone-shaped horns. There is also the long necked gigantelope, which has, of course, a long neck and small horns.

Groath, a goat-like relative of hornheads. It comes in two types: males with plate-like horns and females with pyramid-shaped horns. These hoofed mammals live in herds.

Grobbit, a hoofed rodent with flexible hands for pulling down branches. Much of its body length is tail, one meter of it.

Gurrath, a jaguar-like descendant of mongooses. It inhabits South America after it fused with the Caribbean, where mongooses were introduced 50 million years ago.

Hawkbower, a predatory bowerbird of which the male has a curved flesh-tearing beak. The male skewers its victim to a thorn to attract flies, of which the hawkbower eats.

Hiri-Hiri, a predatory marsupial with a snake-like tail for strangling its prey.

Hornhead, a massive moose-like relative of antelopes. It comes in three types. The common hornhead looks like a cross between a moose and an antelope with a larger lower jaw. The helmeted hornhead has axe-shaped horns. The water hornhead has branched horns and a spade-shaped mouth for plucking water plants.

Horrane, a cheetah-like primate that hunts massive gigantelopes. It uses its sharp teeth and curved claws to slaughter its prey. However it eats only the soft flesh of a carcass.

Janiset, a weasel-like predatory rat.

Khiffah, an ape-like primate that lives in huge groups.

Khilla, a coyote-like descendant of shrews.

Leaping Devil, a round short-faced insectivorous mammal with a long tail and long legs. It hunts desert reptiles and small mammals, like the spitting featherfoot.

Lesser Ptarmigan, a small game bird that coexists with small meachings.

Long-Armed Ziddah, a slender-legged primate.

Long-Necked Yippa, a long-necked descendant of antelope from Lemuria. It uses its long neck for reaching into tropical forest trees.

Long-Legged Quail, a large predatory descendant of quails.

Long-Necked Dipper, an aquatic bird that flies when a juvenile, but becomes flightless as an adult. It spends much of its time underwater.

Lutie, a nocturnal mouse-like descendant of rabbits. However it is not a common animal due to competition with surviving voles and rats.

Matriarch Tinamou, a South American ground-dwelling bird. The female is a large ground-dwelling bird. The male is several times smaller than the female and rides on her back, sucking her blood and mating.

Meaching, small lemming-like rodents that create intricate tunnel systems. They are food for polar ravenes, bootie birds, and gandimots. Their fortresses are made of dead vegetation because they can not tunnel through permafrost.

Mud-Gulper[5], a giant rodent that resembles a hippopotamus.

Nightglider, a predatory South American mammal related to weasels. It glides with folds of skin stretched between its arms, legs, and tail. Its chest is covered with quills for skewering prey. Its fur is colored to match the patterns of certain trees.

Night Stalker, a flightless bat from Batavia. It supports its body on its arms, which are strong since they were once used for flight. It uses its legs for clutching its prey and slashing. The night stalker is blind and uses sonar to locate its prey. These five-foot tall monsters hunt in packs. Similar creatures to the Night Stalker appeared in Primeval

Oakleaf Toad, a toad covered in flaps of skin that resemble an oakleaf. During most of its life, the toad is naturally brown. But when a parasitic fluke within the toad matures, it turns green, revealing it to predators like the predatory rats. The oakleaf toad is a predator itself - hunting small animals and using its worm-like tongue as a lure.

Pacauan Bird Snake, a snake native to the Pacaus Archipelago. It hunts whisters and is one of the few active predators on these islands.

Pacauan Whistler, a group of birds that colonized the islands of Pacaus. They are descended from golden whistlers and have become highly specialized types. Some species eat nuts and have massive rounded beaks. Some have pointed bills for extracting insects from beneath the bark. Some even have hooked beaks for tearing flesh.

Pamthret, a puma-like descendant of weasels that hunt in packs. It inhabits conifer forests: one of the few places that carnivorous rats have yet to reach.

Parashrew, a shrew-like mammal with an umbrella-like tail used like a parachute.

Pfrit, an insectivorous mammal with a hollow lance-like mouth for eating mosquito larvae. It is the smallest mammal known, growing only two inches excluding its tail. It is so light it can even walk on water.

Pilofile, a bird species that adopts two distinct lifestyles. During the summer, this bird has a short beak surrounded by hair-like structures that work like a funnel for scooping up insects. During winter, it sheds that beak and grows a longer beak for probing.

Porpin, a dolphin-like descendant of penguins.

Posset, a marsupial pig that inhabits the forest floor of the Australian rainforests.

Purrip Bat, a bat in which the eyes have vanished and its ears shifted to the front of the head, advancing its echolocation system.

Pytheron, a predatory seal-like rat.

Rabbuck[6], a giant hoofed deer-like descendant of rabbits. It comes in two types: deer-like runners and primitive rabbit-like hoppers. Some tropical species like the strank and the watoo filled the niches of past herbivorous mammals, such as zebras and giraffes. The picktooth is the most bizarre rabbuck, sporting two tusk-like teeth and a spur on both forelegs.

Raboon, carnivorous descendants of baboons. They evolved a gait like those of predatory dinosaurs. Different types inhabit the savannas, from small active predators six feet tall to monstrous scavengers over eight feet tall.

Rapide, a cheetah-like predatory rat

Ravene, a fox-like predatory rat. This type comes in two forms: a slender woodland species and a stocky polar species.

Reedstilt[7], a large horse-like fish-eating mammal. It has an elongated neck, sharp teeth, and slender hair-covered legs.

Rootsucker, a burrowing rodent with a shell made of compressed hair and a face plate. It burrows underground to feed on the roots of desert plants.

Ruffle, a mountain-dwelling descendant of rabbits. It has short ears, long fur-covered legs, and short teeth for chewing moss.

Sand Flapjack, a flat-tailed rodent that uses its tail to cool its body in its desert habitat. They build condensation traps, placing a pile of stones and twigs atop a burrow. It collects dew and drips into a trap beneath.

Shalloth, a sloth-like flightless bat from Batavia. It is omnivorous and sometimes kills small animals with its sharp thumb claw. Once wings, its hand has a single separate digit and its other fingers have fused together. It spends much of its life hanging upside-down.

Shrock, a burrowing insectivorous mammal that resembles a badger.

Shurrack, a descendant of weasels that resembles a long-legged snow leopard. It hunts groaths in packs.

Skern, a flightless seal-like seabird.

Slobber, a marsupial sloth that attracts insects with drips of mucus.

Snorke, a long-faced grazing antelope from Lemuria.

Spine-Tailed Squirrel, a striped squirrel with quills lining its tail. When threatened, it raises the tail and shields its body, spines outstretched.

Spitting Featherfoot, a hopping desert rodent that eats toxic plants. To eject the toxins, the featherfoot spits at attackers.

Strick, a kangaroo-like rodent that runs on two legs. It evolved massive ears for hearing over the tall grass. It lives in South America.

Striger[8], a monkey-like descendant of the last cats. It evolved to hunt fast arboreal animals, like monkeys and thus many tree wildlife battled to combat this new predator.

Surfbat, a seal-like bat from Batavia. The surfbat has a pointed snout, prominent eyes, and flippers made from degraded wings. In many respects, it is the mammalian equivalent of the penguin.

Swimming Anteater[9], an aquatic ant-eating mammal.

Swimming Monkey[10], an aquatic frog-like monkey that hunts fish.

Tapimus, a tusked rodent from South America.

Termite Burrower, a burrowing bird species. Unlike the spink from the film The Future Is Wild, it uses its feet to burrow and has lost its wings. It uses its sticky bristle-tipped tongue for gathering termites.

Terratail, a rodent and one of the few mammals that inhabiot the Pacaus Archipelago. It avoids being hunted by predatory whistlers by evolving a patterned tail that imitates the Pacuas Bird Snake. By thrusting its tail forward and hissing behind a branch, it scares off most of its predators.

Testadon[11], an insectivorous mammal with a hinged shell that can form an impenetrable ball.

Toothed Kingfisher, a swimming descendant of kingfishers.

Tree Drummer, an enigmatic arboreal mammal with chisel-like teeth, a barbed proboscis, and feet covered in fine fur. These hairs sense the movement of grubs beneath the wood. Then the tree drummer bores a hole through the wood and spears the grub with its proboscis.

Tree Duck, an arboreal duck that rarely swims.

Tree Goose, an arboreal goose with only two toes, used for wrapping around a branch.

Trevel, a monkey-like rodent with slender fingers and a prehensile tail. It uses both to reach pine cones out of the reach for animals its size.

Trovamp, a parasitic mammal that clings to its host with barb-like fangs and claws.

Truteal, a blind rabbit-like mammal descended from shrews with a bird-like beak made from outstretched incisors. It has large ears for detecting worms and it uses its teeth for grabbing its prey.

Turmi[12], an anteater-like pig.

Tusked Mole, a mole with tusks. These tusks aid in digging and catching insects.

Valuphant, the largest ungulate on the island of Lemuria, growing 16 feet long. It has a tall ridge over its spine for monitoring body temperature and two horns a meter each. It plays a vital role in its native Lemurian ecology like the elephants of the past, such as distributing the soil while feeding to simulate new plant growth.

Vortex[13], a whale-like descendant of penguins. Its massive beak is laced with slits for sifting ocean water for plankton. At 40 feet long, it is the biggest animal on Earth (whales having gone extinct long before).

Wakka[14], an ostrich-like South American rodent with two legs. Unlike the strick, the wakka has an elongated face, so it can see over the long grass.

Zarander, a large elephant-like pig.

Other Animals: Unnamed jungle mammal seen with five attached trovamps. Unnamed desert lizard that the leaping devil attacks. Unnamed jungle bird being eaten by the anchorwhip. Unnamed forest mammal the nightglider is attacking. Unnamed lizard skewred on the hawkbowers nest. Unnamed forest rabbuck seen being savaged by three nightstalkers.