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 grow in response to signals called growth hormones. When the body is producing those hormones, it signals all the cells that they should be reproducing faster and spending more energy on growth.
When (and how long) creature produces these signals depends on genetics and environment. For example, if a creature lives in near starvation, the body will likely stop growing, or at least slow the rate of growing.
That’s because growing takes a lot of resources away from other functions in the body.
What if you give an animal access to infinite food, would it grow infinitely? Sort of. If you keep feeding an animal beyond its capacity to grow, it will store excess energy as fat to save for later.
However, the actual *frame* of a creature has a maximum size set by genetics.
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