1in1t

Live a life as a dog

LegendaryOdds: 1 in 1.9 trillion

Roughly 900 million dogs, and most of them have no owner. About 900 million dogs are alive right now. Your odds of being reborn as one are 1 in 1.

Sources: Commonly cited estimate of 700 million–1 billion dogs, most of them free-roaming (Gompper 2014, Free-Ranging Dogs and Wildlife Conservation) (order of magnitude only).

Your life

  1. Day 1 · You are born under a parked truck on a street in Bangkok, one of five.
  2. Month 3 · You are old enough to roam.
  3. Year 1 · You join a loose group of street dogs who share a territory.
  4. Year 2 · A shopkeeper feeds you every evening. You guard the shop at night.
  5. Year 4 · You know every alley, every kind person, every danger.
  6. Year 8 · Your muzzle is grey. Most free-roaming dogs never reach this age.

Get rebornEvery number and its source

Questions

What are the odds of being reborn as a dog?

Odds: 1 in 1.9 trillion. Roughly 900 million dogs, and most of them have no owner. (Commonly cited estimate of 700 million–1 billion dogs, most of them free-roaming (Gompper 2014, Free-Ranging Dogs and Wildlife Conservation).)

What are my odds of being reborn as a human?

About 1 in 210 billion if any animal can be drawn. There are roughly 8.2 billion people, but around 1.3 sextillion copepods, 440 quintillion soil nematodes and 10 quintillion insects. Among mammals and birds only, the odds improve to about 1 in 21.

What is the most common animal on Earth?

By head count, tiny crustaceans called copepods (about 1.3 × 10²¹, an order-of-magnitude estimate), then soil nematodes (about 4.4 × 10²⁰, van den Hoogen et al. 2019). That is why the true-odds draw almost always makes you something small.

The odds, animal by animal

Copepod Soil nematode Insect Ant Antarctic krill Honey bee Fish Wild bird Bat Chicken Wild rodent Human House sparrow Cow Elephant Blue whale Giant panda