“After Man” Explained | Speculative Zoology

Imagine a version of Earth fifty million years in the future — where humanity has vanished, and extraordinary new creatures have evolved. Welcome to Dougal Dixon’s “After Man.”
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‘After Man’ is a retro-art filled speculative zoology book written by Dougal Dixon. The book is part of a trilogy alongside ‘Man After Man’ and ‘The New Dinosaurs’ — I have a video on The new Dinosaurs in the archive. After Man also influenced other series like the Future is Wild, and C. M. Kosemen's infamous ‘All Tomorrows.’

‘After Man’s’ impact no surprise, as the post-human Earth Dixon brings to life within the pages feels so familiar, and yet so alien. And the biology of the futuristic animals he showcases are so strange, it’s worth taking a closer look. So, for this entry into the archive, we’re going to break down the animal ecosystems of the far future, bearing in mind that some of the science is outdated, and it’s impossible to know exactly what such a world would look like. Think of this book and this video as just an interesting guess.

So, let’s leap forwards fifty million years, and discover what types of fantastical species might now reign over the planet.

0:00 A New World
1:21 Temperate Forests & Grasslands
3:23 Coniferous Forests
4:19 Tundra and the Polar Regions
5:52 Deserts
7:09 Tropical Grasslands
8:29 Tropical Forests
9:28 Islands
10:35 Outro

All book credit goes to the brilliant Dougal Dixon, please support his amazing work!

Copyright Disclaimer: Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. All video/image content is edited under fair use rights for reasons of commentary and social satire.

I do not own the images, music, or footage used in this video. All rights and credit goes to the original owners.

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

#CuriousArchive #AfterMan #SpeculativeZoology

[CuriousArchive]

Quick correction to this video: the chicken isn't actually the closet living relative to the Tyrannosaurus Rex -- the study I was citing is outdated. Chickens are related to therapods, but aren't uniquely close to the T-Rex when compared to other bird species.

[everything-ydxm]

Queen Elizabeth is so lucky to witness these beautiful animals in the future

[TheRougeFearow]

"bats evolving to mimic flowers is absurd."
The tawny frogmouth mimics flowers sometimes. It's a bird with a bright yellow mouth that attracts bugs.

[intense]

Pokemon Company:
"Write that down, write that down"

[GlassesnMouthplates]

Dixon: Here we have the Aeropanda.
Me: Cool, a Panda with wings?
Dixon: Despite its name, it resembles more like a squid with rocket thrusters.
Me: Odd..., still a cool evolution of the squid though.
Dixon: Despite its look, its ancestor was actually the Tibetan Fox.

[theonlyblake]

So in 2021 we have entered the Speculative Zoology Renaissance, I don’t mind this one bit

[yaafl]

People: "What will animals look like in the future?"

Dixon: "H O R N S"

[jasperfitzgerald]

Love how people are getting into speculative zoology so interesting!!

[kalechips]

It would be very fun if at the end he wrote something like “this is the horseshoe crab, it remains unchanged”

[Zamiiz]

What’s interesting to me is what people of the future will think about these Future Zoology documents, and how they could line up the current events from when they were written to gain an idea of the authors’ perspectives of the future

[bigpapa]

I feel like we can’t come even close to understanding what the future animals would look like without first understanding the climate and ecosystem

[wargriffin]

"rabbits have evolved to fill the same niche that deer once did..."

- Wait, what happened to all the deer?

[shan]

Let’s just hope the Qu doesn’t screw our anatomy in the next 10 million years

[Imperiused]

The Nightstalker, the Vortex, and the Rabbuck were always my personal favorites from After Man. I seriously question the concept of Swimming Anteater though. :D

[justjones]

I've had this book since the early 80's, it's out of date.
I'd love to see a new edition that encompasses more up to date info. 🙂

[deadly_golem]

"Im glad that wolf-sized rats aren't something we have to deal with in our time"

Capybaras: Am I a joke to you

[madeofmandrake]

I read this book growing up and was astounded by how inventive some of these species are. My favourite was the Meaching; a descendant of the lemming, which build colonies under the snow using dead vegetation like half-ant/half-beavers. Another is the Pfrit, a small rodent with an anteater-shaped mouth that uses fine hairs on its feet and tail to skate on top of the water, eating the insects below the surface.
Glad to see that this book hasn't been forgotten!

[shamanbc]

Hopefully the All Tomorrow’s and Man after Man boom in popularity going on right now will give this a boost, great video it’s crazy it doesn’t have more views!

[TheChangeling]

Will admit, had me in the first half, but after the animal with the horns to push snow out of the way, I started critiquing more of these speculations and realized a lot of them are baseless speculation. Not to say no one can do any speculating on what the future holds, but for educational purposes, not enough research went into these changes.

If an animal needed horns to push snow out of the way, why don't deer do that? A lot of the way animals evolved is about energy conversation. Having to constantly shovel snow out of the way is a lot of work and its extremely inefficient. Heavier animals like bears hibernate, and animals that hunt in the winter, like the lynx, have larger feet to act like snowshoes to keep them from sinking in.

There's more I want to touch on but for the sake of not getting lengthy, This is my big example of why a lot of these are unrealistic. The nature of speculation is still fun though.

[curiouscreation]

A channel that focuses on speculative biology as well as realistic fantastical storytelling and world building is the perfect content for me and some of the rarest, most well done on the internet