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How many? And how many of each specie? Without knowing that, nothing you've said so far makes any sense, does it? Baron Max
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Well, that's clear evidence of a hello kitty universe. How sweet! God must be such a nice and good guy.
Well, that's all rather speculative, ain't it? I mean, thousands of species have disappeared from the planet over the millions of years, it can't all be because early man was more aggressive and developed language. Although I understand people's desire to know things, "Shit happens" isn't such a bad explanation until we have some conclusive proof otherwise. If everyone on Earth began to specualate as to causes of things, we'd sure have a lot of "theories", wouldn't we? Oh, wait, speculation without any evidence or infor is one of the things humans do best, ain't it? (Sorry, couldn't resist!) Baron Max
Interesting that you say that. I was talking about hominids, too ...or didn't you read my post? Baron Max
Well, the topic said: "why are there more small animals than large animals? " and some people argued that bigger animals need more food, space, etc... And there had been bigger animals in a prehistoric past, so there goes that theory...
Any given amout of land will support more small animals than large, more herbavores than predators. That is a constant even when there were dinosaurs.
I've been considering the ration of large animals to small ones lately with a startling idea. There are less large animals because it takes them longer to birth, mature, reproduce and finally die. The life span is undeniably longer for an elephant than a hare. Now, think of what this means in each life cycle. There would be no advantage to the evolutionary stand-point for longer lives, now would there? But what about an ecological one? Besides genes, each animal holds dozens of different miniscual symbiotic relationships. Some are only helpful for the carier and harmful to others while vice versa for other times. The point I'm getting at is that with all the larger animals being removed (larger being relative to humans, our perspective, the biggest population difference) in the last thousand years, what about the antibiotics that these larger animals held onto? Or maybe the balance of microscopic life that were given after birth? But in response to the title, small and large are relative. Consider a 3 dimensional chart over time of the size and population of all animals (size > 1 cm), calculate a usable formula and take the center of gravity for it. Heh, just messing. But really, that would give you the reason...it all balances out to about the same point. It's the circle of life (I love the Lion King...) Scott
Think Gravity. Some sea turtles can live two hundred years. Hydra (Cnidarians) can eternally regenerate, thus live forever.
The reason for the small animals is that we can take the most effective genes in every area, alter them and put them in a totally new lifeform that we let evolve by itself.
Didn't they have their day (or rather, their 2 billion years) of dominance BEFORE muticellular life popped up? Who knows, perhaps they will reign again one day. One of my university lecturers used to say that viruses will ultimately snuff out all other life on Earth - it's just a question of when.