Deep Sea Creatures & Giantism

Why deep sea creatures to become gigantic as compared to their more shallow dwelling counterparts – answered.

Lets face it, many deep sea creatures are scary large. Here we take a look at look at why the deeper we go the larger they get. Many deep sea creatures are genetically identical to their smaller counterparts, but for some reason they are much larger.

As it turns out there is are valid explanations for deep sea creatures to become gigantic as compared to their more shallow dwelling counterparts. The combination of food scarcity and cold water are at play in them becoming so large.

Kleiber’s Law ( metabolism doesn’t scale linearly with body size. it scales at 1 to the .75 power):

Kleiber’s Law law applies to all life on earth from whales down to singe cell organisms. This law implies that the larger a species the more efficient metabolic rate is. This explains how the metabolic rate of the colossal squid is so low that they only burn 45 calories per day and require only .03kg of food per day. Wow, that is low, a can of soda is about 140 calories.

With this extremely slow metabolism, these giants tend to move very slowly and wait for their prey to approach them. I guess this means that we don’t have much to worry about as far as being perused by them. Although size does matter, I guess.

What’s called Bergman’s rule is also at play. This has to do with animals living in extremely cold regions. It says animals found in cold environments will be larger than those found in warm environments.

Take a minute to watch this highly informative clip below for more surprising details.

Along with temperature, there are other factors which contribute to deep sea giantism. The following clip describes other environmental factors that contribute to deep sea giantism.

Watch this very informative video below about deep sea giantism below.

Images Source: YouTube Clips ,2

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[updated 11/15/2022]