Looking at how humans  survive when compared to other animals, it is not surprising that there is an age of humans, but not an age for other animals. Humans along with most other animals manipulate their surrounding nature in order to help them survive. For example, Beavers dam streams, which can cause a dramatic change in the surrounding ecosystem, in order to build a den and a place to raise their young. It is interesting that this change is viewed as natural, even though it is changing the environment to suite their needs, but clearing an area of land by humans to build a house is viewed as destructive and unnatural even though it may be done for the same purpose. In both of these cases an originally uninhabitable area was changed to one much better suited for the animal or human.

Humans greatest characteristic to aid in survival is its ability to live in almost any environment, while other animals  have adaptations that help them survive only in certain areas, but give no advantage if placed in a different ecosystem. Cheetahs have great speed, which is beneficial when hunting prey on an open plain but there speed would not help them survive if they lived in a dense jungle. Another example is sea turtles, they have fins which makes them well adapted to an aquatic lifestyle but if they were forced to live solely on land they would not survive long. These differences in survival techniques allows for the human population to grow much larger then other animals because there is vastly more habitable area for humans than there is for other animals, and because humans are able to turn what was once an uninhabitable land area into a habitable one.