Also, all the aquatic animals have one rather serious obstacle to developing an advanced/technological society: no way to make/use fire. Personally I think the only thing that really categorically distinguishes humans from other smart animals is that, the use of fire. Yeah, our language abilities are impressive too, but they may have fully developed after we already started using fire, telling stories around the campfire at night. Fire is what makes it possible for us to make use of more energy than we can physically consume; humans are best defined as the ape that mastered fire.