Wild is right. Or maybe weird is a better word. In this book the reader is instructed to consider animal evolution—without human influence—for the next 200 million years.
    The Future is Wild is a companion book to the seven-part Animal Planet television series. Authors Dixon and Adams used the expertise of biologists, geologists, meteorologists, paleobotanists, and zoologists to come up with some outrageous—but plausible?—evolutionary changes in animals.
    As humans become extinct after a new Ice Age, readers lope along with the large “shagrats” in the cold climate of Northern Europe. A shagrat is descended from a marmot—five million years down the road that is—and it’s one big, hairy rodent! Or check out the snowstalkers (evolved from the wolverine family) tussling over a scrap of meat. The computer-generated images are cool, to say the least.
    But what will dominate Earth in 200 million years? The scientists weighed-in, and the vote goes to a couple of creatures whose time has come: octopuses and squids. Squibbons rule! But, remember, nature constantly evolves, so squibbons won’t rule forever either. Just like us, sniff, poor humans.

(Originally published in the Sept/Oct 2003 issue of YES Mag.)