![]() ![]() As the species expands its range, it crosses paths with animals twice, ten, and even twenty times its size: huge cats, towering bears, turtles as big as elephants, sloths that stand fifteen feet tall. The end of this affair will turn out to be exemplary. They interbreed with these creatures and then, by one means or another, kill them off. On reaching Europe, they encounter creatures very much like themselves, but stockier and probably brawnier, who have been living on the continent far longer. Everywhere they settle, they adapt and innovate. In coastal regions, they gather shellfish farther inland, they hunt mammals. They cross rivers, plateaus, mountain ranges. None of the usual constraints of habitat or geography seem to check them. Gradually they push into regions with different climates, different predators, and different prey. ![]() They are, however, singularly resourceful. The members of the species are not particularly swift or strong or fertile. Slowly its population grows, but quite possibly then it contracts again-some would claim nearly fatally-to just a few thousand pairs. Its numbers are small, and its range restricted to a slice of eastern Africa. The species does not yet have a name-nothing does-but it has the capacity to name things.Īs with any young species, this one's position is precarious. So it is with this story, which starts with the emergence of a new species maybe two hundred thousand years ago. ![]() Beginnings, it's said, are apt to be shadowy. ![]()
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