Basically i just saw a post about a massive black widow spider living in an electrical box and it got me thinking. Why is growth limited to a “general size” in most cases? Is it just natural genetic code that says ” You will only grow this much and no more”, or does it all depend on stuff like environment, nutrition, risk factors, etc?
In: Biology
“Creatures” is a pretty broad term. That fusebox black widow was only about as big as a small wire nut. Insects and arachnids have a directly limited size due to real mechanical cube:square limitations of their exoskeletons and ability to metabolize oxygen that’s why undersea arthropods like crabs can become much much bigger – but we’re generally less afraid of them I guess because we see them as delicious and we don’t encounter them as much.
Creatures like some fish eg carp can grow much larger than you would expect given adequate nutrition and space but they still have an upper limit to their size – while mammals are much more governed by their genetics and, although having a normal range of sizes, will still have a potential to be much larger or smaller according to genetics.
Take dogs for an extreme example. They’ve been selectively bred since prehistory and according to their genetics can grow to be as tiny as a chihuahua or as large as a mastiff.
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