Dinosaurs seemed to have generally been so much larger than animals today. Huge dragonflies that dwarf their modern counterparts, turtles 10ft long. What is the mechanism that allowed them to be so large, or conversely makes modern ones smaller? Is it about Oxygen levels, or efficiency, or something else?
In: 296
Part of it is survivorship bias (of fossils). The bigger animals tended to have the biggest bones, and those have a better chance of surviving as fossils.
It’s also not exactly true that modern animals are a lot smaller. The blue whale is the largest animal to ever exist and is around today. In addition, the Earth was full of giant turtles, giant ground sloths, mammoths, and other huge animals until pretty recently. However it seems that when Homo sapiens arrived on the scene we tended to prefer hunting the bigger animals and quickly drove them to extinction.
Bro use the search bar this got posted a couple days ago. Also to save your time, it’s a bit like survivor bias, the reason humans assume all animals from prehistoric times are giant is because all the fossils we have found from those times are giant, but it makes sense that giant fossils are much easier to find and harder to break down, therefor our collection of prehistoric fossils will favour large animals when in reality, things like bugs and small animals did exist, we just don’t have many fossils to prove there existence, just think, the blue whale is the largest animals to ever live on earth and it’s alive right now, not a prehistoric fossil, but now
First I’d ask if you ever saw a dinosaur (I have not) and are you certain we’ve reconstructed and guessed their true environment accurately or where they came from at all.
For example how do we know they didn’t have additional extremities made completely of cartilage that dissipated leaving only the bone structure as a fossil. Lots of what ifs while the initial narrative is simply accepted because well, it was the initial narrative and that’s a propagation of how human psychology works in general of any topic.
First I’d ask if you ever saw a dinosaur (I have not) and are you certain we’ve reconstructed and guessed their true environment accurately or where they came from at all.
For example how do we know they didn’t have additional extremities made completely of cartilage that dissipated leaving only the bone structure as a fossil. Lots of what ifs while the initial narrative is simply accepted because well, it was the initial narrative and that’s a propagation of how human psychology works in general of any topic.
Part of it is survivorship bias (of fossils). The bigger animals tended to have the biggest bones, and those have a better chance of surviving as fossils.
It’s also not exactly true that modern animals are a lot smaller. The blue whale is the largest animal to ever exist and is around today. In addition, the Earth was full of giant turtles, giant ground sloths, mammoths, and other huge animals until pretty recently. However it seems that when Homo sapiens arrived on the scene we tended to prefer hunting the bigger animals and quickly drove them to extinction.
First I’d ask if you ever saw a dinosaur (I have not) and are you certain we’ve reconstructed and guessed their true environment accurately or where they came from at all.
For example how do we know they didn’t have additional extremities made completely of cartilage that dissipated leaving only the bone structure as a fossil. Lots of what ifs while the initial narrative is simply accepted because well, it was the initial narrative and that’s a propagation of how human psychology works in general of any topic.
I heard on a podcast that it was because they breathe like birds, which makes sense. When we breathe in, we take in oxygen on the inhale. Birds absorb oxygen twice, on the inhale and the exhale. I’ve only heard that once. I have no idea if that’s the actual reason, but I thought it was interesting.
I heard on a podcast that it was because they breathe like birds, which makes sense. When we breathe in, we take in oxygen on the inhale. Birds absorb oxygen twice, on the inhale and the exhale. I’ve only heard that once. I have no idea if that’s the actual reason, but I thought it was interesting.
I heard on a podcast that it was because they breathe like birds, which makes sense. When we breathe in, we take in oxygen on the inhale. Birds absorb oxygen twice, on the inhale and the exhale. I’ve only heard that once. I have no idea if that’s the actual reason, but I thought it was interesting.
Humans killed them. They were threats. The invention of the spear and throwing basically kills any large animal, along with digging pits.
Even if a predator manages to kill human hunters, it won’t get away uninjured, and eventually those injuries will cause complications.
Latest Answers