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In the hours before the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people, elephants, leopards and monkeys in a Sri Lankan wildlife reserve were seen rushing to higher ground before waves of almost 10 metres engulfed the nation.

In 2012 scientists studying the behaviour of goats grazing on the slopes of Sicily's Mt Etna observed them sprinting toward lower ground long before a violent and unforeseen volcanic eruption spewed forth thousands of tons of lava and gas.

And in news just to hand, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and one of the richest people on the planet, is spending almost $300 million on a sprawling 1400-acre Hawaiian compound featuring an enormous underground doomsday bunker with a blast-resistant door and several years' worth of energy and food supplies.

We've known for millennia that animals have an uncanny knack for detecting impending danger. But it's only now we are witnessing that same preternatural ability in that special sub-species of humans, the uber-rich.

Forget custom-built mega-yachts and private jets. The latest status symbols among the billionaire elite are survival bunkers - subterranean utopias in remote locations furnished with marble benchtops, biometric security systems, plush leather sofas and enough food and power to endure the longest nuclear winter.

Demand for these escape hatches, particularly among the immortality-obsessed Silicon Valley billionaire class, has been growing ever since the pandemic exposed how vulnerable humanity remains despite all its technological accomplishments.

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel is a typical example. Having expressed interest in undergoing blood transfusions from younger people to extend his lifespan, the vampiric-leaning Thiel has bought up tracts of New Zealand land the size of lower Manhattan as a bolthole for himself and others should civilisation collapse.

Nuclear war, climate change, a lethal pandemic, an unprecedented solar flare, an unstoppable asteroid or the threat of artificial intelligence or an alien invasion? Doomsday scenarios matter less to the world's super-rich than doomsday planning. And therein lies a vital lesson for the rest of us.

Ever noticed how our new breed of billionaires enjoy portraying themselves as comic book superheroes devoted to saving mankind? Enormous wealth bestows power and influence. But it also exaggerates all those eccentricities and adolescent fantasies the rest of us don't have time to entertain.

Elon Musk is going to transplant our species to a transformed Mars. Jeff Bezos wants billions of us living in glass spheres floating among the stars. Zuckerberg, who foresees humanity living in a digital "metaverse" of his own design, sports an absurd haircut deliberately styled on his personal hero, the Roman dictator Augustus Caesar.

This race among the uber-rich to build bunkers to survive any apocalypse proves they are just as human as the rest of us. When it comes to the crunch, self-interest will always win out. But it's also clear these loaded superheroes see themselves as the rightful custodians of........

© Canberra Times