4 ms·
Klingon whales, now? There are measurements suited to purpose, then there are "technically you could do that" measurements, and it's the former we'd want to us
by observationist 7mo ago
Klingon whales, now?
There are measurements suited to purpose, then there are "technically you could do that" measurements, and it's the former we'd want to use when measuring what sorts of power and pressure and material properties of the vascular system and cardiac tissue of a whale. Enormous amounts of blood are being pumped around, and I'd have to imagine you're in the million miles of arteries and veins and capillaries ballpark, so there's a lot of pressure holding that mass back.
That'd be a fun model to figure out for a weekend project - what sorts of forces are we talking about - how efficient is it compared to say, a hummingbird, or a human, or an earthworm heart?
- zakki 7mo agoBut when things evolve they don't think if they will have enough heart capacity to pump the blood. They just evolve and by chance they got it right. So why whale didn't get the chance to be bigger yet?
- observationist 7mo agoBecause the cost to things that allow the whale to survive is greater than the benefit of being larger, on the whole. If they get bigger, they die and are survived by slightly smaller versions, and over a long period of time, you get a range of slightly bigger and slightly larger whales, centered around whatever average size best fits the niche for that particular time span. It's usually a whole suite of interrelated reasons that are affecting any given feature - size would include hearts, nervous system performance, food intake, protection from predation, and so on, with dozens of factors playing a part.