Ammonite Sapiens #2

Even if you consider seriously the possibility another sapient specie existed in the past, it could look silly to imagine it with a face so close from ours. The reason why I still made it like this is because the pressure that made this specie evolve this way, is the exact same than the one that made our specie evolve the way we are. It is a kind of convergent evolution; same way giraffe and diplodocus look alike because they suffered the same pressure, our species and this ammonite look alike.

The mechanism that would have given this ammonite a human face is close to the one that make some flowers look like insects. In this particular case a flower takes the appearance of an insect species to attract it because this insect helps the plant to reproduce. We could say the evolution of this flower depended more of the insect than of the plant, because it is the perception of this insect, and the way its brain interpret what it see that transformed this flower. This ammonite has been transformed the same way. A species with a human face and behavior has acted on its reproduction, promoting individuals that look the more ‘human’. After some generation of cohabitation with this human specie the ammonite head have changed, its eyes have moved from sides to front, and, under the eyes, body has grown in the shape of some kind of chin. Siphon, shell and tentacles have not changed a lot. Its behavior has changed too. Ammonite became too human to be ruled, so the old human species release this new born human ammonite species back in its natural habitat.

I suppose we could say that our specie and this ammonite specie could be compared to two flowers from two very different plants adapted to look like the exact same insect species. So it could be possible ammonite sapiens was able to do things we think only our specie has ever been able to do. They could have been able to make and use tools, communicate in a very precise language (not necessary sound), be very creative, make war, pollute… whatever only our specie does.

Ammonites lived in the oceans from Devonian to end of Cretaceous crisis (around 400 to 65 Ma). A lot of ammonite fossil remains, from a lot of different ammonite species, but only the hard shell of the animal fossilized, so we can’t know a lot about soft body parts. Fortunately, nautilus, the only descendant of an ammonite species, still lives today and gives us information about those extinct species. Nautiluses have more tentacles than most cephalopods (around ninety), they don’t have suckers, and they reach sexual maturity later than most cephalopods (around 10-15 years). Their shell contains alveolus filled with gas; it allows them to float.

You could be saying to yourself that if such a sapient species lived on earth in the past there should some traces of it, and you would be right to think that. We are the only species I know that pollute, I assume it will be possible to see our impact one the atmosphere in strata of the ground long time after we disappeared, and I suppose an aquatic human species would pollute the atmosphere way more than us. It could pollute it as much as we pollute the inside of the ocean. So maybe it could be possible to trace this hypothetical species in time if stratums was showing a strong increase of combustion gas (for example) in the atmosphere at a moment ammonites was alive . About salid objects, of course organic and metallic objects would have rotten and oxide after that much time, but stone objects had a chance to survive and be found. If those ammonites were looking like us, they may have built with stone, and since in an underwater environment a big stone would be way easier to raise than on dry land, they could have use stones way bigger than the one we used to work with. So if those stone existed we should have found them since a long time (maybe even before the apparition of science).

What follow is not really related, I don’t know why I talk about that, but did you knew that sites where are build every ancient megalithic temples and cities around the world were simultaneously under oceans between 90Ma and 65Ma? Isn’t it a fun coincidence ^^. Also I suppose it can be said has a fact that someone who would like to search into the cretaceous strata in a place where there is ancient human remains in a higher strata would be considered a stupid idiot by its pairs in the present conjecture of science.

In brief, there is maybe still a very small possibility such a human species existed, but only if our specie been really blinded by egocentrism.