Dolphins Я Us
Why did we ever leave the sea?
If it were possible to set up a time-lapse camera on a very slow release — say, one frame every half a million years — what spectacles might blossom forth? A gradual morphing from one form to another: digits elongating to become the framework for wings, scales fraying into feathers, fins and flippers transfigured into feet…and back again?
Returning to the water seems a retrograde step, yet it is one which has been successfully undertaken by several species. Not that they consciously decided to become aquatic. They just sort of drifted into it, as sea otters are doing at the moment.
These animals are seriously adapting to life in the water. They eat in it, mate in it and even sleep in it, anchoring themselves to their territory by deliberately entangling themselves in seaweed. They’ve kept their front paws but their back legs have become flippers.
Sea-lions have developed a little further. They still have small protruding ears and four limbs, but these latter are curiously amended to have frayed and flattened endings. Seals are almost there, losing the ears to become more streamlined and jettisoning their back legs in favour of a fishier-shaped rear end.
Finally, of course, a full-blown return to the sea. None of this nonsense, lolloping about awkwardly on rocks and honking at one another; dolphins, beautifully adapted, have become the symbol of excellence for all aspiring ocean-dwellers. Smart and with a sense of humour (you can see them laughing at us) dolphins show us what we might have been.
Humans are thought to have returned to the sea and its environs millions of years ago, when we were still hairy apes. It seems that oceanic food, especially shellfish, is rich in minerals, which help to power the intellect. Yes, fish really is brain-food.
We must have lingered around the shores for a long time, washed by the gentle lap of the waves, sucking out the contents of mussel shells and losing most of our body hair.
Other apes never took that step. Chimps don’t have any instinct for underwater survival and can’t hold their breath. They can drown in a few seconds. On the other hand, human babies aren’t at all scared of water and swim happily submerged.
We were safe. We were well-fed. We were doing all right. So what made us change our minds and return to land?
Nobody knows. But if we had stayed, might we have become more and more involved in a watery life and ended up fish-shaped, flippery and fun — like the dolphins?
One turn of a card, one tumble of a dice and things might have been different. The time-lapse camera would show water-wading apes, suddenly stripped of their hair, but probably keeping their digits (opposable thumbs are always useful). Legs and feet wouldn’t be essential though and webbing between toes is quickly reworked into a snappy set of flippers.
We’d acquire better insulation in the form of body-fat, our nostrils would move to the top of our heads and our lungs would become much more efficient.
But our brains; we’d still have our brains — and given a vast new kingdom to conquer, what might we have become? Would we still have hunted in groups and co-operated, taking our natural instincts with us into the sea? How far would we have manipulated our environment, riding the backs of other creatures swifter than we, or adapting their propulsion methods to suit our coral-constructed chariots? Would we have acclimatized to the depths, grouped into cities, gone to war with narwhal tusk and razor shell, adopted kings and enslaved nations?
Or would we have abandoned ambition and become simpler beasts, content to frolic in the salty surf as dolphins do?
What if some of us did?
