4 ms·
Towards the end of the article they state a second hypothesis that seems to be ignored in these comments but pretty plausible: people kept the larger examples t
by robotresearcher 6y ago
Towards the end of the article they state a second hypothesis that seems to be ignored in these comments but pretty plausible: people kept the larger examples they found, skewing the collections in favor of size, and thus males over females.
Of course, there could be more than one selection effect at work.
- jbay808 6y agoHow common is it across species that males are larger? It's definitely not universal.
- trianglem 6y agoIn mammals it’s near universal I think with the exception of whales where the sizes are comparable.
- tachyonbeam 6y agoAFAIK, animals where there is stronger competition among males for females tend to have more of a size difference. Species that are purely pair bonding tend to have animals of similar sizes. Humans have relatively little size difference compared to other mammalian species. There are many spider species where the male is smaller.