Re: India: Three Year Old Runs Marathon Distances


"rmacfarl" <rmacfarl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1132643298.032101.6730@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> 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
>

They didn't have an effective means of birth control other than abstainance.


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