Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!decwrl!labrea!polya!ray From: ray@polya.Stanford.EDU (Ray Baxter) Newsgroups: sci.bio Subject: Re: Squirrel Questions Message-ID: <4150@polya.Stanford.EDU> Date: 28 Sep 88 23:44:01 GMT References: <22811@mordor.s1.gov> Reply-To: ray@polya.Stanford.EDU (Ray Baxter) Distribution: na Organization: Biological Sciences, Stanford University Lines: 19 In article <22811@mordor.s1.gov> lip@s1-amid.UUCP (Loren Petrich) writes: > I once saw a squirrel jump with a drop of over six feet (onto >a carpeted floor, I might add), and run off as if nothing had >happened. Is such durability typical of small animals? If so, then it >would be an outcome of the square-cube law, in which smaller animals >have a larger drag force (~area~length^2) per unit mass >(~volume~length^3). Six feet is not all that far; humans, chimps and large cats can all handle it. But I take your point, smaller animals, squirrels especially seem especially graceful about it. It think that adaptation is more likely to be the cause of this grace than the proportion of drag to mass. Consider the flights of a rat and a mountain lion. I would be willing to bet that the mountain lion would appear considerably more graceful, in spite being more than 10 times longer. By the way, if the square cube law were to be involved, it would more probably be the cross-sectional area of the animals bones, and not the drag, which was the relevant measure in a fall of six feet.