HARROW: A latest marine research suggests that aquatic animals are getting bigger day by day. After the Cambrian period, the average sizes of sea animals have increased up to 150. Sizes of nearly 75 percent of sea animals have transformed since last 542 million years. The current size of blue whale is around 100,000 times larger as compared to the Cambrian whale. In comparison, the size of smallest sea creature is nearly 10 times lesser than the Cambrian era. The study is printed in the Journal Science.
odern oceanic creatures are 150 times larger than their Cambrian-era counterparts, which roamed the seas about 542 million years ago.
This massive size gain lines up with an evolutionary trend promoting species diversification among the largest marine animals, according to recent study from Stanford University paleontologists
“We’ve known for some time now that the largest organisms today are larger than the largest organisms that were alive when life originated or even when animals first evolved,” said Stanford paleobiologist Jonathon Payne in a press release.
The purpose of the study was to test the validity of a scientific theory called “Cope’s Rule,” dubbed in honor of the 19th century paleontologist Edward Cope. The rule is simple: animals’ evolutionary lineages tend to produce larger species as time passes. Larger creatures can simple avoid predators more easily, eat bigger prey and move more swiftly through the water.
To test Cope’s Rule, researchers examined the body sizes of 17,208 genera, or groups of species, and entered this data into a custom computer program meant to simulate evolution.
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