The question of ranking animals by rank must first be answered by answering the question “what is the best animal.” The answer is, of course, hedgehogs. These tiny creatures are the pinnacle of evolution’s current non-teleological progress, a natural process with no goal which reaches its perfection in hedgehogs. Their weight to prey ratio, combined with scientific measures of their ferocity, adorability, and quilliness all combine to give hedgehogs the only bestness score of 100 – off the charts. Thankfully, we live in a world where everyone’s aware of the hedgehog’s magnificence, so at least this is an uncontroversial and natural choice.
Where things get tricky is considering which animal is second best. No primates – too obvious, no quills, and an almost unnatural over-intelligence that’s a danger to the poor things. Not even a mammal, really – the best animals after hedgehogs are birds, where the best bird is the hummingbird.
How this comes to be is based on the Pricklepants scale, explained here:
It seemed a stretch at first, but the data all fit. Hummingbirds are the best birds, and kinglets, well:
Hummingbirds and kinglets are both really excellent birds and both always a happy delight to see.
Emus: creepy
This leaves all the other animals besides hedgehogs and birds, a domain of science still in its infancy. There it is clear that mustelids are excellent, but fish are also good, and it is possible that invertebrates very well may be better than mammals (save hedgehog), the debate shall continue, and whether some mammals (say, a stoat) might be better than some birds (such as a brown headed cowbird.) But the current best animals from the hedgehog to the ostrich are still nicely sorted.
The Nature Bloggist 