• Question: If you could be any animal in the world, what would it be, and why? give a scientific answer :)

    Asked by chelss to Vera, Steve, Sam, Katie, Ed on 20 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by susannahmartin123, sophc123.
    • Photo: Steven Daly

      Steven Daly answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      I would be a dolphin so I could become the first person/dolphin to understand if they have anything like a language similar to ours. That is quite scientific!

      What would you choose?

    • Photo: Vera Weisbecker

      Vera Weisbecker answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      I’d like to be a naked mole-rat because these animals have a really crazy social organisation. They are the only mammals to function a bit like a beehive or an ant colony – you get different types of animals (e.g. workers and queens) that have a particular, highly specific role and expend their energy for the whole colony, rather than more or less for themselves. I’d like to understand the complexity of these interactions and whether they also have the same kind of “collective intelligence” that is ascribed to bees and ants.

    • Photo: Katie Marriott

      Katie Marriott answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      I would like to be a cat. I love the way they can move. I am extremely clumpsy so to be able to move in the air like they do and land on my feet would be really handy!

    • Photo: Ed Morrison

      Ed Morrison answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      I’m going with New Caledonian crow. These birds are amazingly intelligent and can use and even make tools, which used to be thought to be unique to humans.

    • Photo: Sam Tazzyman

      Sam Tazzyman answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      I’d be a tardigrade:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

      They are a microscopic type of animal that can survive more extreme conditions that just about anything else. They are fine at temperatures near absolute zero (-273 degrees C), or up to 150 degrees C, can go up to a decade without water, and can survive huge quantities of radiation.

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