Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for November 19, 2022

The human body is so disappointing. Pretty much an embryo that can walk.

Life’s a B.

Compound eyes are not that good. If you could combine the best features of eagle eyes and chameleon eyes, that would be cool.

Face it: We human beings are natural prey animals. No fangs. No claws. No armor. No fur. No poison. Crappy camouflage. Slow runners. Poor swimmers. Can’t fly. And, to top it all off, soppily devoted to our offspring, who remain helpless and useless for years after birth. (Contrast that with colts or fawns struggling to their feet within minutes of being born.)

How then to explain our success as a species? The main reasons are (1) these big honkin’ brains of ours and (2) the linguistic ability they’ve given us. In the ideal case, once a single human acquires a bit of knowledge about the world, he or she can transmit it to all other humans via language, so nobody else has to independently make that same discovery. In practice, it takes way more than one exposure for any bit of information to stick, and most of what does stick is transmitted no further than to other members of the same small tribe. Specifically, parents pass along information to their children, and thus knowledge is preserved, accumulates over time, and gives its possessors a competitive edge over rival tribes.

Humans wouldn’t have anything going for them if it weren’t for opposable thumbs.

Some of my fondest wishes especially the prehensile tail.

Maybe not, but you are more intelligent than every animal with all of the above.

You do however have opposable thumbs, Calvin.

Over here one of the local birds species has learned to safely eat a poisonous introduced toad by first scaring and then washing its food before eating.

They are teaching each other and the innovation is spreading across the country.

But, oh, that marvelous brain….

Lack of wings is the worst part.

This is pretty much how I learned the term “retractable claws,” and so when I saw my old cat using them I knew right away what they were called.

In Mowgli’s Brothers, the Jungle Book, Shere Khan the tiger feared the orange flower known as fire.