A Stanford University-led research project has found that sea animals have gotten bigger over the past 542 million years due to evolutionary reasons.
Marine animals have gotten bigger over time.
Over the past 542 million years since the Cambrian period, their average size has increased 150 times.
The blue whale is more than 100,000 times bigger than the largest animal of that period, a crustacean, while today’s tiniest sea creature is less than 10 times the volume of its ancient counterpart.
These were the findings from a five-year research project led by Stanford University’s Dr. Noel Heim which examined body size data from every source possible.
With the help of a large team including high school students, they were able to collect data on more than 17,000 marine animal species dating back over 500 million years.
They not only found trends of increasing size but also determined that the largest animals spawned a greater and more diverse number of descendants.
The team ran si
