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submitted 2 weeks ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] then_three_more@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago

Which I think is intentionally disingenuous as it massively favours the large mammals over the far higher number of species of smaller mammals.

For example you'd need over 70 squeal monkeys to make to the biomass of an average American.

Humans and other great apes can be considered mega fauna, so it doesn't seem surprising that us and the animals we consume make up a higher percentage of bio mass. Were bigger.

[-] SkyeStarfall 16 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I don't think it's disingenuous. It represents the total share of resource consumption. If something has 2x the biomass, it consumed 2x the materials needed to produce that biomass (purely in terms of the makeup of the body, that is)

I don't think count by itself is very relevant. There's more bacteria in a glass of water than there are humans in a country, but what does that tell you, exactly?

Although I do agree the infographic should be changed to specify biomass

[-] wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It would be MUCH more than 2x resource consumption, because every action that animal takes requires greater energy to move it around. The energy required to sustain larger lifeforms is significantly greater than the proportion of their mass.

[-] yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 weeks ago

Not necessarily, many small animals have an utterly insane metabolism making them eat their entire body mass in a couple of days. For example, hummingbirds eat the human equivalent of 150,000 calories per day.

Larger animals typically cannot afford to spend so much energy - there is just no large food source that has sufficient calory density.