Man is obviously not the largest or most powerful species on the planet. And, despite our slow maturation, a number of species have longer lives. Our sight is far inferior to that of raptors and the family dog has hearing and olfactory skills that are well beyond human capability. Many species outshine us when it comes to athletic talents (running, swimming, climbing, diving etc.) and almost all have survived the challenges of earth's ecosystems far longer than we have.
When humans first appeared, about 125,000 years ago, the Universe was almost 13.7 billion years old and the Earth was nearing 4.6 billion years of age. Though often ridiculed as a failed life form, the dinosaurs inhabited the planet for 160 million years and even some of Earth's current species (sharks and horseshoe crabs, for example) were present long before the first dinosaurs appeared. Next to humans, the youngest surviving mammal species is the Arctic fox, which has been around twice as long as humans.
But humans are, indeed, the most intelligent species in the history of our planet and this intelligence has given us the audacity to conclude that we are the culmination of evolutionary history. Furthermore, this intellectual capability has led us to imagine that all other species have been placed on this planet to serve our needs. We, by our own conclusion, are the chosen species, the pinnacle of "God's creation." Whether this assessment applies to intelligent life forms in other solar systems and across other galaxies is generally not addressed!
