Human specialisation.

I sometimes worry that the human race has a rather elevated view of itself. Our specialism seems to be being able to solve problems only we create. Other animals seem happy to not generate them in the first place. And they have more useful specialisms of their own. Giraffes can pick things off the top shelves at B&Q, Hippos can carry three bags of organic peat-free compost (buy 2, get 1 free), to the checkout, though their teeth perforate the bags and make a mess on the floor, which ants can build complete civilisations in. No, the ability to just clear up one’s own mess is nothing to brag about. Carrot flies for example, presumably with noses the size of, well a carrot fly’s nose, can smell carrots from 7 miles away. That’s olfactory Olympics with Usain Bolt beaten by a diminutive pigmy dwarf. But. Isn’t there always a but. It can only fly 10 inches off the ground. I don’t know why, perhaps it gets dizzy. So it has to find a route across 7 miles containing no obstacles higher than 9.998” in the way. It probably begins on Tuesday flying round the clock lured by the promise of a meal the size of the Empire State Building. Round, through, over, under; hour after hour it weaves its way nearer and nearer our carrots. At the end of this mammoth journey it reaches its destination. And this is where our human specialism comes in. We grow our carrots in 18” high pots. Bugger!