re: Which species would move to the top of the food chain if mankind goes extinct?

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It's common knowledge that the mongoose and the snake are mortal enemies. And you'd think that statement is one-sided: On the one hand, you've got the very emblem of evil and sin -- a scaled, wriggling tube of poison, fangs and death. On the other hand you've got what looks like a cross between a rat and Prince Charles.

If they allowed bets on interspecies rivalries, we'd lay our money square on the snake, every time. And we would lose that money, for one very simple reason: because the mongoose isn't fighting snakes for food, or for territory, or for survival -- it's fighting snakes because frick snakes. That's seriously the reason why: Occasionally you will see a mongoose eating the meat from a defeated snake, but as a general rule, they prefer to avoid it. Yet they still actively seek out and hunt snakes, oftentimes ones larger than themselves. Some species of mongoose have even been known to fight king cobras, a snake so badass it literally eats other, lesser snakes for breakfast. The iconography of the king cobra inundates our culture, and from Commander to Kai, it is always used to intimidate. The hood, the hypnotic weaving, the forked tongue -- every visual aspect of the king cobra screams rotten death and fear.

And then along comes this doofy hillbilly weasel, which proceeds to murder the shite out of the living embodiment of terror just because there's nothing better to do that day.

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