"I thought you were the dominant species on your planet!"
"I mean, depending on how you define 'dominant,' that could also be beetles. But I understand what you mean. Let me show you some pictures of the things we evolved alongside, that evolved alongside us. ...Let's start here. Big cats."
"Wait, I've seen cats. You own a cat."
"Not like this. Here, this is a leopard. An ambush predator. See the spots?"
"They are! And see this one?"
"...No? This is not a cat. This is a lovely picture of a dry grassland."
"No, here. In front of the shrubs. ...HERE, see the eyes? Here and here?"
"Oh-- oh, WHAT the FUCK, it's just sitting there! Out in the open!"
"I didn't see it! It's sitting right there and I didn't see it! How did you see that!"
"I'm getting to that. Let's keep going. This other one is a lion-- they're bigger than leopards, and they hunt in groups, like us; they use a combination of stalking and team-pursuit to hunt. See? A bit like wolves hunt, too-- those are the precursors to dogs. Big, big dogs that don't partner very well with humans. Look, watch her-- there she goes-- herding it towards-- that one and that one, there."
"Here's an aerial shot--"
"...This looks like your football game. Soccer."
"Huh! I guess so, a little! Hold that thought, I'll come back to that. Now, look at this one. This is-- was-- a saber-toothed cat. They died out towards the end of Earth's last major ice age."
"With lions and leopards?"
"Nope, those are extant, they evolved alongside us. Wolves, too. And crocodiles-- they're a mostly aquatic reptile, solitary, and fairly small--"
"--compared to the extinct ones that may have preyed on early humans, yes. This is Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni. Almost eight meters long, like twenty-five feet. Another ambush predator. Thorbjarnsoni is extinct, but see this one?"
"That's a river with some logs in it. Or... I think that's a river with some logs in it..."
"Look again. Look at this one."
"It's a saltwater crocodile."
"All of the animals we've looked at are pretty big, yeah. Now, remember how you said the lions hunting looked a little bit like football players?"
"Humans got really, really good at not being the ball. At seeing lions before they could get close. At seeing crocodiles in the logs, and leopards in the grass, and wolves in the dark. We aren't dominant because we're the biggest, hungriest hunters on our homeworld. We're dominant because we're better at seeing patterns than the patterned hunters are at hiding."
"And because we're better at seeing patterns than our patterned prey is at hiding. And we're good at tracking, AND we can walk for hours. And we can cook! Once we figured out fire, we didn't need such strong jaws anymore-- we could eat meat with smaller teeth and jaws, which meant our brains could get bigger. We're long-lived, big-brained, cooperative hunters that can walk a wounded animal into exhaustion. We made it to space without ever NEEDING to eradicate the other major hunters in our preferred biomes."
"Also, as long as we're on this, I've always thought the stone wall behind you looks like it has a ducky in it. See? That blotch there is its eye--"
