Or, in general, how do we end up with large animals in harsh environments like tundra or desert? I’d naively assume that it’s advantageous to have a smaller body size and lower caloric needs in places where food is scarce. Yet neither camels nor caribou fit in my pocket.
Why aren’t austere environments populated solely by e.g. Jerboa mice?
In: Biology
because they can. enough adaptations and food sources exist to support animals of that size.
if any number of adaptations/evolutions didnt happen, we wouldnt have polar bears……but we did, and they manage to survive…..so theyll stick around
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It’s the other way around. Small mammals spend lots of energy very quickly and need to eat disproportionately more than that body weight. You won’t find many small animals in the tundra.
One thing is volume to surface area. Larger creatures have a higher volume to surface area ratio.
Simply put for their size they have less surface to lose heat through, which is useful in cold climates.
Also larger creatures are often more energy efficient & require less nutrients than smaller creatures. This is known as Kleiber’s Law.
Polar bears are pure carnivores and largely predate on large animals. So being large makes it easier to kill and eat those animals with less likelihood of being injured.
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