History Main / FormerlySapientSpecies

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': According to the season 10 finale, ''Feral Friends'', Bikini Bottom regularly goes through a cycle of devolution thanks to the rising of [[BadMoonRising Neptune's moon]], which emerges once every century and causes all sapient marine life to [[DevolutionDevice spontenously devolve back]] to their feral selves, often becoming [[NoCartoonFish non-cartoonish]] [[AnimalisticAbomination predatory monstrosities]] in the process for as long as the moon remains active.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': According to the season 10 finale, ''Feral Friends'', Bikini Bottom regularly goes through a cycle of devolution thanks to the rising of [[BadMoonRising Neptune's moon]], which causes all sapient marine life to [[DevolutionDevice spontenously devolve back]] to their feral selves, often becoming [[NoCartoonFish non-cartoonish]] [[AnimalisticAbomination predatory monstrosities]] in the process for as long as the moon remains active.

* The short story "In the Barn" by Creator/PiersAnthony has a human explorer scouting a parallel world where humans are kept as livestock. This world lacks non-human mammals and the scout seeks to find out how they are practicing animal husbandry by getting a farm labourer's job dealing with livestock. He discovers that the "livestock" are human beings who were made non-sapient through sensory deprivation during infancy, with the intelligence and self-awareness of cows. As they take the form of not unattractive women bred for milk, this causes [[BestialityIsDepraved lots of problems]]... and a sense of [[TeenyWeenie inadequacy]] when he has to manage the "bull". Anthony once jokingly suggested he was working on a sequel, [[ImAHumanitarian "In the Abattoir"]].

** Played much straighter in a lost chapter, named "The Grey Man" as published separately at a later date. It depicts the time traveler going further and further into the future, by an unnamed number (but according to his instruments many, many thousands) of years, where earth had become a bleak, barren desert with grey skies and a dimmed sun, and not even the faintest remains of Eloi and Morlock civilizations. There, he finds a group of small, furry animals, akin to tail-less rabbits who are soon hunted by a large centipede-like creature. Startingly, before the monster appears, he knocks one of these little animals unconscious with a rock, and, upon further examination, finds out these creatures have human traits...

* ''VideoGame/StarControlII'': In the backstory, the Ur-Quans won a SlaveRevolt against their taskmasters, [[HypnoticCreature the Dnyarri]], and decreed that death was too lenient. The remaining Dnyarris were lobotomized into unthinking animals, now serving the Ur-Quans [[spoiler:as living translators known as "Talking Pets". When the Umgah unknowingly undid the lobotomy on ''one'', the resulting Neo-Dnyarri showed exactly ''why'' they were TheDreaded. A single specimen was able to mind control the entire Umgah homeworld along with its fleet, but you will need to enlist his help in the final battle against the Ur-Quans.]]

* The short story "In the Barn" by Creator/PiersAnthony has a human explorer scouting a parallel world where humans are kept as livestock. This world lacks non-human mammals and the scout seeks to find out how they are practicing animal husbandry by getting a farm labourer's job dealing with livestock. He discovers that the "livestock" are human beings who were made non-sapient through sensory deprivation during infancy, with the intelligence and self-awareness of cows. As they take the form of not unattractive women bred for milk, this causes [[BestialityIsDepraved lots of problems]]... and a sense of [[TeenyWeenie inadequacy]] when he has to manage the "bull".

* ''Toys/{{BIONICLE}}'': On Bara Magna, after the colossal disaster of the Shattering, the surviving tribes were left to survive in the wasteland that was left as best as they could. Most of them managed fairly well, but members of the Sand Tribe, the Vorox and the Zesk, eventually devolved into savage primitives roaming the desert. Later, we see members of the Sand Tribe who actually faired much better - instead of being stuck in the miserable desert, they were stranded on the bountiful forest moon, and have actually become quite advanced; they're also not happy with the way the other tribes have treated their relatives.

** Humanity originated as a LostColony of the alien Pak, on a planet unable to sustain the virus in the Tree of Life necessary for the transformation to Protector. As a result, after the first generation of Protectors died, Earth humans were no longer being bred along clan lines by Protectors and thus mutated and evolved to form the various homminds.

[[AC:Exaples by author:]]

* ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'':

* ''Literature/{{Darkeye}}'': While there ''are'' still sapient humans around, they're very rare in the city where the story takes place; most of them are bouda, who spend their reproductive years as non-sapient spotted hyenas before ''usually'' metamorphosing into sapient humans. Later, we meet the screamers, a human subspecies whose ancestors willingly gave up their sapience to allow themselves to become food for their [[UpliftedAnimal uplifted dogs]].

** "Literature/TheRatsInTheWalls": The de la Poer family sated its [[IAmAHumanitarian cannibalistic appetites]] by breeding "human pigs" in immense underground food pens. The breeding stock was so inbred and twisted towards the end that some of them had devolved into quadrupeds, and they had largely lost the capacity for thought.

* ''Literature/{{Blindsight}}'': Discussed. The aliens in the book, known as "scramblers", are highly intelligent but at the same time lack any form of sapience or self-awareness -- everything they do is instinctive, up to and including constructing interstellar spacecraft. The same is true of the [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]], which are an [[IAmAHumanitarian anthrophagic]] offshoot of humanity. The narrator muses that self-awareness is, from an evolutionary perspective, wasteful and unproductive, and he wonders whether truly sapient species like humanity are doomed to lose their sapience in the long run.

* ''WebOriginal/HamstersParadise'':

* A short story by Creator/PhilipJoseFarmer has a human adventurer discovering a parellel world where cannibalism is not only permitted, it is big business. This world lacks cattle or pigs -- they are completely unknown -- and, not knowing this, the visitor seeks to blend in by getting a farm labourer's job dealing with livestock. He discovers that the "livestock" are a mutated form of human beings, with the intelligence and self-awareness of cows. As they take the form of not unattractive women bred for milk and eventually meat, this causes [[BestialityIsDepraved lots of problems]]... and a sense of [[TeenyWeenie inadequacy]] when he has to manage the "bull".

* ''WebOriginal/{{Serina}}'':
** The first sapient species to appear on the planet was the fork-tailed babbling jays, a species of intelligent songbird. However, changing climates would kill off most of the species thanks to increased rainfall leading to disease growth in their once desert home. Out of sheer loneliness, the last surviving babbling jay would take a mate from a closely related but nonsapient species and produce hybrid children that also lacked his intellect (save for a young grandchild who was killed by a predatory bird when their intelligence distracted them). Millions of years later these hybrid descendants would live on in the chatterers, a nonsapient but still fairly intelligent bird that can mimic speech. Five million years later, the chatterers' descendants, the bluetailed chatteravens, have become near-sapient but are still aggressive and instinct-driven in their behavior. One bluetail named Brighteye is born with a genetic mutation that makes him fully sapient, but only as a throwback to the babbling jays rather than the first of a new sapient species.

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': SCP-1000 ([[IHaveManyNames also known as]] {{Bigfoot}}, the Sasquatch, the Yeti, and more) was [[{{Precursors}} the dominant species on Earth long before recorded history]], every bit as advanced and intelligent as we are now if not more so. Eventually though, humanity arose to [[FinalSolution wipe out almost all of them]], and then used their own advanced technology to [[DevolutionDevice reduce the intelligence of the survivors to that of apes]], before destroying almost all evidence of their existence, including humanity's own memories of them. However, in recent times their intelligence has begun to return, and [[{{Ultraterrestrials}} they seem to want their place on Earth back]].

* ''Literature/OfAntsAndDinosaurs'': After the Dinosaur and Ant civillisations are destroyed, it is stated that the ants will eventually regress back into non-sapient foragers.

* A short story by Creator/PhilipJoseFarmer has a human adventurer discovering a parellel world where cannibalism is not only permitted, it is big business. This world lacks cattle or pigs -- they are completely unknown -- and, not knowing this, the visitor seeks to blend in by getting a farm labourer's job dealing with livestock. He discovers the "livestock" are a mutated form of human beings, with the intelligence and self-awareness of cows. As they take the form of not unattractive women bred for milk and eventually meat, this causes [[BestialityIsDepraved lots of problems]]. And a sense of [[TeenyWeenie inadequacy]] when he has to manage the "bull".

* ''Literature/JanitorsOfThePostApocalypse'': In the backstory, a virus sweeps humanity, killing much of the population and turning most of the survivors into "ferals" which are basically {{Technically Living Zombie}}s whose greatest interest is eating warm flesh. After about fifty years, feral humans have settled into being just another species of animal, huddling together in dens when it's cold and roving out after food, and when [[OctopoidAliens the Krakau]] come to make FirstContact they rush up to [[FirstContactFauxPas eat the diplomats]]. It's later shown that healthy, well-fed ferals can be [[FriendlyZombie almost tame]], will peacefully take food by hand rather than tearing into someone, and evince signs of personality -- again, like animals. The Krakau also develop a partial "cure" to {{uplift|edAnimal}} some of these humans for [[ServantRace their own ends]].

* Creator/HPLovecraft:
** "Literature/TheBeastInTheCave" describes cave-dwelling humans who degenerated into savage monsters.
** "Literature/TheRatsInTheWalls": The de la Poer family sated its [[IAmAHumanitarian cannibalistic appetites]] by breeding "human pigs" in immense underground food pens. The breeding stock was so inbred and twisted towards the end that some of them had devolved into quadrupeds, and they had largely lost the capacity for thought.

* ''Literature/KnownSpace'': This happens several times in Known Space as a whole.

* ''Literature/ManAfterManAnAnthropologyOfTheFuture'': After humanity devastates the natural environment and wipes out most forms of large vertebrate life, the far-future human civilization decides to create new species of animal from the only remaining genetic stock -- i.e. humanity -- in order to fill the numerous niches left empty. This results in four species of nonsapient humans being created -- large, hairy tundra-dwellers to take over the role of musk oxen and mammoths, ''Australopithecus''-like forest-dwellers meant to fill in the niches once occupied by deer and bears, digitigrade plains-dwellers to act as herding grazers, and apelike arboreal jungle-dwellers. Some of these species re-evolve sapience, but others remain animals. Notable are the tundra-dwellers, who evolve into numerous megafaunal herbivores; numerous predatory and even parasitic forms descended from the forest-dwellers; and the jungle-dwellers, who secluded in unchanging canopies filled with food and without dangers never had reason to develop into anything other than placid, mindless beasts.

* ''Literature/{{Darkeye}}'': While there ''are'' still sapient humans around, they're very rare in the city where the story takes place; most of them are bouda, who spend their reproductive years as non-sapient spotted hyenas before ''usually'' metamorphosing into sapient humans. Later, we meet the screamers, a human subspecies whose ancestors willingly gave up their sapience to allow themselves to become food for their [[UpliftedAnimal uplifted dogs]].

-> ''Reject humanity, return to monke.''

* ''Literature/{{Darkeye}}'': While there ''are'' still sapient humans around, they're very rare in the city where the story takes place; most of the are bouda, who spend their reproductive years as non-sapient spotted hyenas before ''usually'' metamorphosing into sapient humans. Later, we meet the screamers, a human subspecies whose ancestors willingly gave up their sapience to allow themselves to become food for their [[UpliftedAnimal uplifted dogs]].

* ''Literature:{{Darkeye}}'': While there ''are'' still sapient humans around, they're very rare in the city where the story takes place; most of the are bouda, who spend their reproductive years as non-sapient spotted hyenas before ''usually'' metamorphosing into sapient humans. Later, we meet the screamers, a human subspecies whose ancestors willingly gave up their sapience to allow themselves to become food for their [[UplifedAnimal uplifted dogs]].

* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'': Talking beasts can revert back to dumb animals if they go back to their ways. Most notable in ''Literature/TheLastBattle'', where the cat Ginger is literally scared out of his wits when he unexpectedly encounters [[{{Satan}} Tash]].[[labelnote:*]]Ginger didn't believe in either Tash or [[{{Jesus}} Aslan]], but had made a show of calling on "Tashlan" to manipulate the other animals. [[GoneHorriblyRight It worked.]][[/labelnote]]

* The Yahoos from ''Literature/GulliversTravels'' are inbred descendants of a stranded human couple. By the time Gulliver visits, they are a race of savage beasts without a shred of sapience and being used as draft animals by sapient horses.

* In the backstory of ''Literature/JanitorsOfThePostApocalypse'' a virus sweeps humanity, killing much of the population and turning most of the survivors into "ferals" which are basically {{Technically Living Zombie}}s whose greatest interest is eating warm flesh. After about fifty years, feral humans have settled into being just another species of animal, huddling together in dens when it's cold and roving out after food, though when [[OctopoidAliens the Krakau]] come to make FirstContact they rush up to [[FirstContactFauxPas eat the diplomats]]. It's later shown that healthy, well-fed ferals can be [[FriendlyZombie almost tame]], will peacefully take food by hand rather than tearing into someone, and evince signs of personality - again, like animals. The Krakau also develop a partial "cure" to [[UpliftedAnimal uplift]] some of these humans for [[ServantRace their own ends]].

* In ''[[Literature/JackelianSeries Secrets Of The Fire Sea]]'', the ape-like ablocks and predatory ursks are discovered to be descended from, respectively, humans and UrsineAliens of a long-fallen civilization, degenerated to an animalistic state after untold generations spent trying to exterminate each other.

* In the ''TabletopGame/RedDwarf'' game, universes where rabbits evolve intelligence had humans become savages, becoming mainly used in medical experiments by the rabbits.

* In ''Webcomic/TwoKinds'', this is the fate of any Keidran that stays in feral mode for too long; they become less and less sapient until they forget how to turn back.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', the Woolies were a race of highly intelligent, [[GentleGiant peaceful but very large, strong]] beings with a bipedal stance. By the time Jack encounters them, however, they've been reduced to beasts of burden by the Chritchellites, who use technology that render them quadrupedal, animal-like in behavior, and their language reduced to grunts and roars. Eventually averted, however, when Jack deduces what actually happened and finds a way to restore the Woolies to their former selves while annihilating their captors.

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'': ** After the [[{{Precursors}} Forerunners]] defeated the [[AdvancedAncientHumans ancient human civilization]] in a long and grueling war, the Forerunners, out of spite, subjected the survivors to a DevolutionDevice -- its victims consciously ''feeling'' their minds and bodies regressing to a pre-sentient state -- before exiling them to Earth. However, with the assistance of a sympathetic Forerunner, humanity regained its sapience and speciated into many prehistoric HumanSubspecies in just a thousand years.

** That same Forerunner, the Librarian, later discovered a distant, primitive enclave of Forerunners whose ancestors were exiled to a barren world millions of years ago. While the planet was habitable, the Forerunners were the only life present on it, and various subspecies evolved to fill all necessary ecological niches. This included livestock, crops, and other plant life such as lichen and mosses.