And in this universe earth is the exception. Not only is earth far away from all of the other living planets it's one of the few with land vertebrates.

The armored fish driving tetrapods on to land was a kind of ripple in the intended pattern. It threw everything off!

And just looking at The Dunk-- it is kind of unnatural, don't you think?

This also means that the ants will keep describing humans as "intelligent life from the sea" -- even as we keep explaining that everything came from the sea and it was a long time ago...

To them having a backbone means you are adapted to living in the water.

I'm adding "Evolution of Ant" to my list of things to draw.

It would be like one of those old-school natural history museum murals. Starting with single-celled life in the tidal pools of early Myrmecos, then the first multicellular life, then the first sea arthropods, then a momentous moment when a little crab creature first steps on land! Then the early insects, primitive solitary wasps with the glimmers of consciousness, eusocial insects discovering fire ... and at last ants!

Hmm it occurs to me reading about the history of human aviation and all of those people longing "to fly" might make ants very uncomfortable.

The ants have never had much fascination with flight. (Space is another matter.) Any queen or drone can fly. It's considered a sign of maturity to pull one's wings off and get on with life.

Flying has primitive, and also vaguely sexual connotations so all the documentaries about people like the Wright Brothers just make Humans sound hopelessly horny.