Evolution: food supply limits whale size (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, December 13, 2019, 13:52 (1805 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID (under “new transitional whale”):There were transitional changes in the spine/hip area:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient-whale-fossil-helps-detail-how-mam...

DAVID: Another partial step as whales adapted more fully to living in water, which required an enormous number of physical and physiological changes.

dhw: So would you say these enormous physical changes were the result of whales adapting itty-bitty more fully to living in water, or do you think your God preprogrammed each individual change 3.8 billion years ago or kept popping in to do a new dabble in his effort to cover the time until he turned to the itty-bitty evolution of H. sapiens?

What I believe is God guided evolution constantly or with much pre-programming or pre-planning.

QUOTE: "If you're a blue whale and your only prey item is krill, and something causes krill populations to go into decline, then you are at an evolutionary dead end because you would not be able to eat enough to sustain yourself," he said. "It's a good reason for us to try to better understand these predator-prey relationships.'" (David’s bold)

DAVID: Very educational study of whale size limits. They can evolve to a dangerous size for their continuing existence. My bold is a major point. Top predators control ecosystems unless or until they eat themselves out of a job, or prey disappear. The bush of life requires active econiches/systems.

dhw: Of course it does. Every single organism that has ever lived depends or depended on econiches that provide food. Could anyone possibly disagree? (NB this subject has nothing whatsoever to do with the theory that a God personally designed every econiche for the sole purpose of keeping life going until he fulfilled his one and only purpose of designing H. sapiens. Thank you for keeping the two subjects separate.)

What allows such huge size is buoyancy. No strain on bones and joints..