Proudly alone: for most of recorded history, our species believed itself to be so unique on planet Earth as to bear no relation whatsoever to any other species of animal, and therefore to be a very special form of life. Creation stories around the world tell of men and women being born from eggs, shells, bodily fluids, dust and clay, but always distinct from the rest of the planet, and especially in the best-known myths of the Western world – humans are seen as an indispensable accessory to the life of our species. It was possible to recognise similarities between similar species of animals or plants; between seagulls, mice, wild beasts, or fir trees, and the like. But even the animals most similar to us – monkeys, for example – were placed in categories distinct from the one to which only we belong. The famous representation of the entire system of living beings as a «ladder of nature» (scala naturae) always places our species at the top, above angels and deities if we count them too, but detached from the rest of the animal world, even though a certain anatomical similarity between us and other species could not be denied, particularly after the discovery of what we call anthropoids, or higher primates.
