Re: (arthritic) Sauropods vs. Gravity - all

["T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>]

On Tue, 5 Mar 2002 NJPharris@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 3/5/02 12:04:38 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> TiJaWi@agron.iastate.edu writes:
>
> > >Personally, I like the idea that a placental mammal the size of a
> >  >sauropod could never reproduce, because the young would never fit >through
> >  its mother's birth canal, due to scaling effects between adult >and infant
> >  placental mammals.
> >
> >  I would guess whales are the exception to this.
>
> Sorry.  I screwed that up.  I was referring to the paper mentioned by HP
> Holtz earlier today, hypothesizing that the long *gestation times* of such
> large mammals would hinder their establishing sustainable populations.  My
> bad.

A quick search for facts on the web shows that the gestation period of
large whales is actually about *half* that of elephants (about a year as
opposed to nearly 2 years for the elephants). Exactly how strong is the
relationship between size and gestation period? Are whales exempt from the
usual rules somehow? (By being aquatic? How would that matter?)

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