Mark Twain wrote in his Letters to the Earth:
"Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them! He is the only animal that loves his neighbour as himself, and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven. He was at it in the time of the Caesars, he was at it in Mohammed's time, he was at it at the time of the Inquisition, he has been at it ever since he saw the light - he will be at it somewhere else tomorrow. I consider that the strongest count against his intelligence is the fact that with that record back of him he blandly sets himself up as the head animal of the lot."
It is interesting that, of all the religions, it is the currently nonpolitically dominant ones that allow for the spirituality and higher development of non-human species. The Native American nations speak reverently of the Wolf People, the Otter People, the Badger People, the Coyote People, the Bird People and so on. The old pre-Christian tales of the European tradition speak of helpful trees, birds, animals and even rocks. In short, it is the shamanistic religions above all who allow for the spirituality of other than human life (all shamans and shamanesses have animal allies). The great religions of Ancient Egypt and Persia were not unaware of their ties with all other life.
In its inclusion of all nature, the old Mazdean religion, especially in its pre-Zoroastrian roots is notable, for the Magi taught that all life, and not only the human, had a higher destiny. This was a basic Mazdean tenet, extending not only to animals but plants as well. Indeed, at the end of "the time of long domination of evil", all the life of the earth is due to be transfigured. Zamyat, the feminine higher being in charge of our planet, is actually a form of the Divine Mother, Spenta Armaiti, who also appears as Arshtat and Ardvi-Sura-Anahita (High-Sovereign-Immaculate-One). It is She who nurtures and dispenses the living fire of immortality, the glorious xvarnah (pronounced "khvarnah").
She provides all the life-forms of earth with transfigured, higher bodies of luminous, nonmolecular substance-energy as recounted in the ancient stanzas of the 11th and 19th Yasht. She is also called Savagaetha: She-Who-bears-the-Heaven-of-Light.
And in Yasna XXX, verse 9, one finds the resplendent vow and prayer:
"O grant that we be among those chosen to bring about the Transformation of the Earth, for there do our thoughts tend."
The later Pahlavi sacred scripture, the Den-kart, which preserves many ancient and even pre-Zoroastrian teachings, tells us (book 9, chapter 28) that in its final metamorphosis our transfigured earth will be transported to a higher starry sphere by the power of the ever-living fire, the Xvarnah, "that glory which can never be seized by force" as the ancient Gathas tell.
So we see that the evolutionary stakes are high indeed and that the human species is not necessarily the sole prize winner, let alone the evolutionary favourite. We as humans need to cultivate a more admirable humility in our spirituality, as well as a more realistic appraisal of our place in the overall scheme of things.
