An intriguing event came to a close recently, right here in Florida. Known as the Science Writers convention, the gathering was held from November 1-5 and featured a collection of journalists who write about… yes, you guessed it! Science.
The Science Writers 2013 convention gave rise to a rather interesting announcement from paleontologist, Jonathan Bloch. Bloch, who is employed at the Florida Museum of Natural History, opened up about his research into the correlation between warmer temperatures and the body sizes of various reptiles as well as mammals.
Bloch explained that his team of scientists conducted a study into the fossils of land-dwellers that inhabited the Earth millions and millions of years ago. Astonishingly, he described that hotter climates indicated an increase in the size of many creatures. For example, one fossil that Bloch studied was of a 60 million-year-old turtle that was as large as a kitchen table. Another reptile fossil, which was around the same age, included a snake that was in excess of 30 feet!
Being that reptiles are cold-blooded, they depend entirely on the environment to regulate their body heat and temperature. Such staggering sizes would only be possible if the temperatures in which the reptiles lived was incredibly hot. Bloch’s research implies that as such things as pollution persist, climate change will continue to increase the world’s temperature over the years. This could potentially result in future mammals and reptiles appearing in size as they did millions of years ago.
Although the research predicts a rather astounding change in the sizes of future wildlife, the study does pose rather serious implications of just how much global warming could potentially affect the planet.