This blue whale is the biggest animal ever to live. Today's sea creatures tend to be larger - many are more than 100 times larger - than their ancient relatives.
NOAA PHOTO LIBRARY/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
6 comments:
Owen
said...
It seems impossible that the whales today are 100,000 bigger than their Cambrian ancestors especially since marine animals today are on average 150 times larger than they were during the Cambrian period. The article mentions that the smallest marine animals today are smaller than the smallest marine animals of the Cambrian period so not all animals got bigger. Hmm.
This article had one of the many topics that I enjoy. What this article stated was completely the opposite of what I used to think. I used the comparison of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs used to be huge, and over the coarse of time, creatures started to shrink, but it looks like I was wrong. It feels impossible that creatures specifically whales are 100,000 times than their Cambrian ancestors. What I think is most fascinating is that there was an exponential growth in the larger animals like whales compared to the smaller animals such as ostracods specifically, these animals today are only one tenth the size of the smallest Cambrian animals. One possible explanation for this change in growth has to do with the breathing mechanism that these animals have. As stated in the article, the some land animals and reptiles returned to the ocean and had the ability to breath oxygen themselves vs. the smaller animals that had to filter oxygen through water. This adaptation is the most probable explanation. I really enjoyed this article. Thank you Mrs. Ghazarian for posting this incredible article.
Wow. Just like Jason, I thought that marine animals' ancestors were gargantuan and then they decreased in size. But I was wrong. According to "Cope's rule" animals evolve into species that have increased in size. It was cool how to test this theory, Noel Heim used fossils from trilobites, plesiosaurs, etc. and compared them to today's animals' fossils. It was also amazing how it turned out that whales are more than 100,000 times bigger than their largest counterpart in the Cambrian, although this is difficult to believe. It was also interesting that animals that were already big evolved and change differently than those who were smaller. This article was very interesting and it changed my perspective on the whole subject of evolution.
It is odd how large sea creatures have grown I used to always admire how long the blue whales are. But they have become much bigger and all sea creatures are so big. It must be something about water that makes them so large. Because land animals just dont grow that much over time. It must be something about what they eat/their genes. It is cool how they can grow but when we figure out how they grow bigger maybe we can copy it too land animals making them bigger for more food/produce. A very interesting topic I like to see articles like these to study about for the blog.
Yeah. It seems unthinkable that they are not just a few feet bigger, but 100,000 times bigger!! This was really cool because my friend went whale watching and she said that the whales were really big and I thought that there was no possible way that they could have been that large. The Cambrian period was a long time ago, and to think that they have evolved so much. But other animals, they haven't evolved that much. Like Jason said, the land reptiles/amphibians/mammals, or some of them, went back to the ocean and developed new breathing "habits" in the ocean. The larger animals got to breathe oxygen while the smaller ones had to filter it. I really hope there will be more articles like this in the future.
First off, I liked this blog post, and I too wonder why the animals have grown in size. Nature? Sure, but why, why does "Mother Nature" do this? Although this post was good, I think they could've done a little more, maybe elaborate more on their theories. I am interested in finding out, and knowing would make the incident much more understandable and clearer. Like Jason's comparison, science/nature is proved wrong here, because in one scenario, dinosaurs are shrinking, but here, whales especially, are growing! What?
6 comments:
It seems impossible that the whales today are 100,000 bigger than their Cambrian ancestors especially since marine animals today are on average 150 times larger than they were during the Cambrian period. The article mentions that the smallest marine animals today are smaller than the smallest marine animals of the Cambrian period so not all animals got bigger. Hmm.
This article had one of the many topics that I enjoy. What this article stated was completely the opposite of what I used to think. I used the comparison of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs used to be huge, and over the coarse of time, creatures started to shrink, but it looks like I was wrong. It feels impossible that creatures specifically whales are 100,000 times than their Cambrian ancestors. What I think is most fascinating is that there was an exponential growth in the larger animals like whales compared to the smaller animals such as ostracods specifically, these animals today are only one tenth the size of the smallest Cambrian animals. One possible explanation for this change in growth has to do with the breathing mechanism that these animals have. As stated in the article, the some land animals and reptiles returned to the ocean and had the ability to breath oxygen themselves vs. the smaller animals that had to filter oxygen through water. This adaptation is the most probable explanation. I really enjoyed this article. Thank you Mrs. Ghazarian for posting this incredible article.
Wow. Just like Jason, I thought that marine animals' ancestors were gargantuan and then they decreased in size. But I was wrong. According to "Cope's rule" animals evolve into species that have increased in size. It was cool how to test this theory, Noel Heim used fossils from trilobites, plesiosaurs, etc. and compared them to today's animals' fossils. It was also amazing how it turned out that whales are more than 100,000 times bigger than their largest counterpart in the Cambrian, although this is difficult to believe. It was also interesting that animals that were already big evolved and change differently than those who were smaller. This article was very interesting and it changed my perspective on the whole subject of evolution.
It is odd how large sea creatures have grown I used to always admire how long the blue whales are. But they have become much bigger and all sea creatures are so big. It must be something about water that makes them so large. Because land animals just dont grow that much over time. It must be something about what they eat/their genes. It is cool how they can grow but when we figure out how they grow bigger maybe we can copy it too land animals making them bigger for more food/produce. A very interesting topic I like to see articles like these to study about for the blog.
Yeah. It seems unthinkable that they are not just a few feet bigger, but 100,000 times bigger!! This was really cool because my friend went whale watching and she said that the whales were really big and I thought that there was no possible way that they could have been that large. The Cambrian period was a long time ago, and to think that they have evolved so much. But other animals, they haven't evolved that much. Like Jason said, the land reptiles/amphibians/mammals, or some of them, went back to the ocean and developed new breathing "habits" in the ocean. The larger animals got to breathe oxygen while the smaller ones had to filter it. I really hope there will be more articles like this in the future.
First off, I liked this blog post, and I too wonder why the animals have grown in size. Nature? Sure, but why, why does "Mother Nature" do this? Although this post was good, I think they could've done a little more, maybe elaborate more on their theories. I am interested in finding out, and knowing would make the incident much more understandable and clearer. Like Jason's comparison, science/nature is proved wrong here, because in one scenario, dinosaurs are shrinking, but here, whales especially, are growing! What?
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