Small animals like hamsters only live 2-3 years (as pets) while animals like crocodiles live on average for 30 to 40 years. Is it because their bodies age or get weaker slower because they have a larger surface area or something?
Thanks for answering
In: Biology
It is related broadly to resource efficiency. Larger animals need more resources (food, energy) to grow. This take more time. This means they spend more time being small (young) before growing into adulthood. This means their parents need to spend more time and their own resources taking care of their young. This means the parents cannot have many children in a short period of time. To make this all work out (ie the species to survive long term) the lives of the animal must be long. If the large species don’t have long lifespan, most parents cannot raise sufficient children, the resources to have and raise kids are wasted and the species dies out.
EDIT: left out a word.
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