None of those are exceptional. Have you heard of invasive species?
Of course. But they reach a limit. Only one species is able to exploit resources, and the biosphere, to its own ends. Agriculture, mining, and technological advancement are peculiar to humans. All of these permit us to live longer, with fewer setbacks, and in environments no other animals can survive (space, and soon other planets). Are these not exceptional traits?
We can also engineer a virus, or deploy strategic weapons that could wipe out our entire species (and a bunch of others). Is that not exceptional?
But some animals have agriculture (ants?) and some plants exploit metals in the soil (phytomining)! Still, Sapiens are the champs.
And it's such a banal obvious claim I'm making, and yet it's being downvoted to oblivion. I can't imagine cane toads doing anything I mentioned.. or even ants having some sort of hegemonic control over the fate of all other species.
If tomorrow all ants disappear then most land-oriented ecosystems would just collapse.
We humans are having so egoistically anthropocentrical world views that it's not even funny anymore.
> Humans are also exceptional in that they could extinguish themselves, either by choice on their own folly.
Could you imagine ants finding a method to annihilate themselves? I don't claim that animals are unintelligent, but we are unique in our ability to create technology to achieve almost any goal, no matter goal's 'sapience'.
> If tomorrow all ants disappear then most land-oriented ecosystems would just collapse.
I don't dispute this, but it's completely orthogonal to my claim. Humans have disrupted the biosphere in a manner that is unprecedented since when meteor strikes and seismic events were still shaping earth
It's not very hard for ants to collectively commit suicide.