Because smaller animals have to eat more relative to their bodyweight, Tolkein’s hobbits need to eat a lot – not for comfort, but for survival.
LEARN MORE
**************
To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
Metabolism: The chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life.
Square-cube Law: A mathematical principle which describes the relationship between the volume and the surface area as a shape’s size increases or decreases.
Kleiber’s Law: The observation that, for the vast majority of animals, an animal’s metabolic rate scales to the 3⁄4 power of the animal’s mass.
Calorie: Unit of energy. One food calorie equals 1 kilocalorie.
SUPPORT MINUTEEARTH
**************************
If you like what we do, you can help us!:
– Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth
– Share this video with your friends and family
– Leave us a comment (we read them!)
CREDITS
*********
Cameron Duke | Script Writer
David Goldenberg | Script Editor, Narrator and Director
Adam Thompson | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music
MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC
https://neptunestudios.info
OUR STAFF
************
Sarah Berman • Arcadi Garcia i Rius
David Goldenberg • Julián Gustavo Gómez
Melissa Hayes • Alex Reich • Henry Reich • Peter Reich
Ever Salazar • Leonardo Souza • Kate Yoshida
OUR LINKS
************
Youtube | https://youtube.com/MinuteEarth
TikTok | https://tiktok.com/@minuteearth
Twitter | https://twitter.com/MinuteEarth
Instagram | https://instagram.com/minute_earth
Facebook | https://facebook.com/Minuteearth
Website | https://minuteearth.com
Apple Podcasts| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/minuteearth/id649211176
REFERENCES
**************
Kleiber, M. (1947). BODY SIZE AND METABOLIC RATE. Physiological Reviews, 27(4), 511–541. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.1947.27.4.511.
Dawson, N. (1967). The Surface-Area/Body-Weight Relationship in Mice. Australian Journal of Biological Sciences, 20(3), 687. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1071/bi9670687.
How Much Does an Elephant Weigh? (2019, September 26). Wonderopolis.org. Retrieved from: https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-much-does-an-elephant-weigh
Thommen, Albert, et al. “Body Size-Dependent Energy Storage Causes Kleiber’s Law Scaling of the Metabolic Rate in Planarians.” (2019) ELife, eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd, 4 Jan. 2019. Retrieved from: http://www.elifesciences.org/articles/38187.
West, G. B., Brown, J. H., & Enquist, B. J. (1997). A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology. Science, 276(5309), 122–126. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.276.5309.122.