Humans puzzle me a lot.  We are animals, but we like to feel we are different.  Maybe we are enormously different, maybe not.  Who knows.  We lump all the rest of the animals together and us apart.  But who knows, maybe they are all equally different too.  We just don't know.  We have limited understanding.  But some of us make some pretty big assumptions in the way we regard ourselves, and the way we treat animals too.

In some ways we are different.  We are the only ones who have such devastating impact on the environment and other animals around us.  Who scar it with roads and concrete structures, and use our technology to resist any drought or famine which would naturally return things to balance.  And we are the only animal who is unable to biologically cope with our environments - even those with ancestors long in cold climates require clothes to avoid dying of hypothermia.  Every other animal is adapted to its environment.

I am not drawing any conclusions.  I don't know.  I don't pretend to know.  This, like most things about the world, is a mystery to me.  And I am not interested in adopting what is effectively just a hypothesis as the truth.    Just thinking.  It is interesting.  I would like to know more.

Reminds me of another of my favourite quotes, by Mark Twain.  I like this one a lot:
"It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions."