Why Whales Got So Big

While it&#x27;s obviously not a hard and fast law and I have gotten into arguments with people way above my pay grade over that:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cope%27s_rule" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cope%27s_rule</a><p>not as an explanation of why whales are big, just a sort of interesting bit of related history.

&gt; the need to stay warm sets a floor for the body size of oceanic mammals, while the need to eat sets a ceiling. And the gap between them, Gearty found, is surprisingly narrow—and far more so than on land.<p>Interesting. If the range is so narrow for mammals, how did Dinosaurs get big?

I wonder if this could be related to the size of pacific islanders. I remember reading somewhere that is was somewhat of a paradox how people living on small islands for so long became so large.<p>People from the pacific have been long been adept fisherman using techniques such as deep diving spearfishing.<p>Pacific islanders are also enormous. They&#x27;re overrepresented in the NFL for a good reason. Anyone who has ever met a family of Samoans knows that these people have very different genes.

&gt;And they evolved a foraging technique called lunge feeding, where they accelerate into a shoal of prey, open their ballooning mouths, and suck in vast volumes of water.<p>This is terrifying.

interesting article, but there’s a small mistake. i don’t think it’s accurate to say that sea otters spend a lot of time on land. i think it’s actually fairly rare for them to go on land.

So will humans continue to get bigger if we don&#x27;t hit a world wide food constraint?

This article made me imagine mouse-sized dolphins, and now I am sad they do not exist.

Know it’s an expression, but not sure how pay grade factors into an argument like this.