like, birds. they move in sharp bursts. and squirrels. why do they do this and other animals, like bears, don’t?
In: Biology
Small animals do this because they are much stronger relative to their weight than large animals. As a rough approximation, strength goes up with the square of your size. This is because the muscle strength is proportional to the muscle cross section area. Think about how many muscle fibers of a the same thickness you can fit in an animals neck as it gets bigger. The diameter of the neck makes it stronger but the length doesn’t. But mass goes up with the cube of the animal’s size. Think about how all the formulas for volume usually have a cube in them. So as you get larger, mass goes up faster than strength. This is why small animals can accelerate their movements faster than large animals.
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