patrick.net

Some animals can BE wheels:

Yes, but the point of the video an referenced text is that animals can't evolve to form a wheel-axle system because it would not be possible to transfer nutrients and oxygen between the wheel and the axle. Nor would making one of the two parts out of non-living material work because it would still be necessary to have living cells to manage the structure of the non-living material, and those cells would starve.

Interesting perspective, but there are other ways to look at it. Dawkins and the narrator's best point is that wheels are overrated.

If wheels were really useful, famously cooperative insects might assemble like transformers into wheeled super-organisms. Even human fingernails naturally grow in a curve, and humans can somersault, and many animals are capable of using simple tools. Sea creatures steal shells, crows are especially adept at using sticks and assembling nests. The narrator notes flagella, which operate similarly to wheels but more like propellers. So, it wouldn't be all that difficult for an animal to make a wheel, it just also wouldn't be very useful without roads or rails.

Even for most of human history, people relied heavily on boats, which is why cities tend to be near coasts. Even today, places that lack roads rely on air travel. And, air travel is surprisingly efficient: commercial airliners traveling over 500mph get over 50 passenger MPG, sometimes 70, which is better than a person driving alone in a Prius at one tenth the speed. Airlines pay taxes, while passenger railroads are subsidized; freight rail is efficient, while vehicles on roads are less so.

As technology advances, limbed robots and flying cars may overtake roads. There may come a time when people will look back on roads and wheels as mostly an interim step, like the "animal track" phase of human history. Meanwhile, it's interesting to note when religious fundamentalists talk about something being "unnatural," that what they call unnatural is in fact natural, while wheels are actually unnatural, and so is religion.

A deer trail may be considered a road built by animals. Such trails are also used by many other kinds of animals (e.g. humans).

New Renter says

A deer trail may be considered a road built by animals. Such trails are also used by many other kinds of animals (e.g. humans).

The difference being that a deer creating a trail requires no "extra" effort on the part of the deer. Also, game trails are not conducive to wheeled transit.

Building a road on the other hand is a huge up-front energy expenditure for an expected "savings" in energy during one's future travels.