Re: India: Three Year Old Runs Marathon Distances


Jois wrote:
....
> If the population of elephants had been reduced by some catastrophy that
> didn't involve the food supply then the variability of fertility in the
> females would allow for a quick rebound of population numbers - that is, the
> young females would reproduce earlier and therefore more often over the
> course of their lifetime. I think that is how this would work in humans,
> too. Modern population levels may be too high to see this now - or modern
> catastrophies wipe out food supplies as well as people. I don't usually
> think of elephant life spans as short but that idea works for cats and mice
> and lots of other small animals.

It seems anecdotally to me that pioneers into "new" territory often
have very large families. My grandparents respectively came from
families of 9, 7, 9 & 3, & were no more than 2 generations from the
earliest white settlers in south-eastern Australia...

Ross Macfarlane

.