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The article mentions 25% of fossils are female. Females would need 75% less bone mass to account for that.
by ASalazarMX 7y ago
The article mentions 25% of fossils are female. Females would need 75% less bone mass to account for that.
- moate 7y agoThat's not quite how the math works. Assuming there was a size/mass minimum for fossilization, and that we expected that to be the only qualifier for fossil occurrence, we'd just need to expect X% of species to exhibit sexual dimorphism depending on how frequently we see males&females of the same species. For example, if you needed a bone to weigh 5kg/meter and males are 5kg/meter but females are 4.5kg/meter then you'd expect to see a very low number of females even though they're only 10% smaller. Obviously none of this is the case, and this isn't the deciding factor on why it's happening. Just pointing out where you missed things slightly.
- ASalazarMX 7y agoYou're right, but that doesn't fit in a snarky one-liner. If we were serious about this bone mass minimum, we'd need to consider why there are fossils of smaller animals, or big but hollow-boned animals. That's a rabbit hole with many hypothetical variables.