I caught some National Geographic on television the other night, and watched an episode about dolphins. Not just cute images of dolphins flipping out, but footage of them (bottle-nose, mostly) beating up other dolphins. It also showed dolphins, in a coordinated effort, rush out of the water onto a muddy bank. The wave they would create pushed small fish onto the shore where they would flop helplessly and get snatched up by the dolphins. Sometimes a dolphin will wiggle too far onto the land, becoming stuck and eventually dying.
It all reminded me of a Simpsons episode where Lisa frees a show dolphin and unwittingly enables the dolphins to take over the dry-land world. But seeing those dolphins use land to hunt fish made me think about their place in evolution. They’re mammals that live in the water with a bunch of fish, they’re highly intelligent (one of the few creatures that acknowledge their own reflection in a mirror), and now, some of them are turning to land as a way to get their food. They’re totally going to take us over!! Of course, by the time they evolve into any kind of opposing power, we’ll have evolved into pure energy and the Earth will be so close to the sun that the surface will be a charred, barren wasteland. Enjoy! You fuckin’ fascist dolphins.
