My understanding of the square cube law, should it need to be corrected: The larger an animal is, the less skin (and therefore heat dissipating area) it will have for its size.
I read somewhere that animals of the same species tend to be larger in colder climates, so to my understanding, it should relate to elephants as well, but if that’s the case, how do they thrive in the heat where they live?
Thank you!
In: Biology
The giant ears are also to radiate heat.
African elephants have giant ears, mammoths had tiny ears.
They got tons of folds in their skin, which traps moisture longer, and allows them to stay cooler longer. Asian elephants that live in cooler climates have smoother skin than African elephants, which live in warmer climates.
Elephant-sized animals thrived in very cold climates as well. Elephants’ size does present a problem for heat, and that’s the biggest reason for their famously huge ears. Perhaps african elephants are just the largest size that an animal can reach in the climate they live in.
You are taking the square cube law very seriously. It isn’t really a ‘law’ but rather an general thumb rule derived from a basic geometrical fact.
This ‘law became popular because it fits in with another observation – large animals tend to have slower metabolism than small animals, possibly because they have a higher tendency to overheat.
What it really tells you is that large animals will require more adaptation in temperature control to survive in hot climates, as compared to small animals. These adaptations include slow metabolism, different diet, or like the elephant, large ears.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/IDn9RIo.jpg) is a infrared picture that shows the heat distribution of an elephant. As you can see, it’s ears are much cooler than the rest of it, because they are really efficient heat exchangers.
Similarly small animals will require more adaptation to survive in cold climates.
It’s like saying a blimp flies because it is lighter than air, than how does an aeroplane fly when it is heavier than air? Well, it flies because it has wings and a massive engine to make it possible.
This book has a lot of discussion around this [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1458003.Why_Elephants_Have_Big_Ears](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1458003.Why_Elephants_Have_Big_Ears)
As big as modern tropical elephants are, their extinct relatives in temperate and polar regions (mammoths and straight tusked elephants) were actually often somewhat larger.
There were many elephant species living in the cold areas, they just died out. (they might be called differently, but they were elephants)
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