my crazy theory

[r3d]

maybe im stupid but i just felt like asking the experts

so here i go. in the past (dinosaur days) bugs, fish, reptiles, EVERYTHING was huge, and i heard on discovery channel that they were so large because there was 30% more oxygen in the atmosphere than there is today

so is it possible that the more oxygen there is in your tank the bigger and/or faster your fish will grow?

 

[Kobeclone]

I do question the 30% more oxygen in the air.

Also, Quick math tells me that in the "dinosaur days"-most likely you are refering to the cretaceous- the air was 27.3% oxygen compared to 21% in today's world. This extra 6.3% of O2 in the air does not lead me to believe that this is the reason prehistoric life forms grew so much larger.

Finally, if you think about it, when human's-as well as other animals- breathe in, we use only a portion of this 21% of oxygen in the atmosphere. This means that even if the air was 27.3% O2 now as it was in prehistoric times, we would still only use a small portion of this oxygen in each breath, meaning we would gain no advantages.

But, perhaps you should take this as a gain of salt as I am not informed on this subject and was only making educated guesses. Maybe Oddball will chime in...

 

[Dan F]

I do question the 30% more oxygen in the air.

Also, Quick math tells me that in the "dinosaur days"-most likely you are refering to the cretaceous- the air was 27.3% oxygen compared to 21% in today's world. This extra 6.3% of O2 in the air does not lead me to believe that this is the reason prehistoric life forms grew so much larger.

Finally, if you think about it, when human's-as well as other animals- breathe in, we use only a portion of this 21% of oxygen in the atmosphere. This means that even if the air was 27.3% O2 now as it was in prehistoric times, we would still only use a small portion of this oxygen in each breath, meaning we would gain no advantages.

But, perhaps you should take this as a gain of salt as I am not informed on this subject and was only making educated guesses. Maybe Oddball will chime in...

Actually 27.3% oxygen would be exactly 30% more than present levels (6.3/21=.3).

Whether it was the reason things grew so big is an interesting question. Even if it was the main underlying reason that things were so big, they evolved into giants over thousands of generations. Pumping extra oxygen into a tank won't change the maximum size of fish, in my opinion.

 

[r3d]

possibly accelerate growth?

 

[Dan F]

possibly accelerate growth?

It seems possible. Has anyone experimented with this?

 

[frasertheking]

there was a program on this where they grey fish in a chamber with extra o2 and the fish did grow larger might be worth testing if some one comes up with a cheap way .

 

[frasertheking]

more oxygen means more energy and less used to breath so more left for growth ,well i think it would make a change.

 

[Trippingpara]

Sounds plausible. Now if that helped the dinosaurs grow bigger, I have no idea since my knowledge of dinos is solely based on Jurassic Park!

 

[BIGgourami]

This means that even if the air was 27.3% O2 now as it was in prehistoric times, we would still only use a small portion of this oxygen in each breath, meaning we would gain no advantages.

i have taken this with a grain a salt and have come up with this...
this staement has no bearing on the subject... the fact is that air ISN'T like like it was 200 million years ago... and animals today aren't adapted to this..
so the O2 usage of animals back when may have been higher today, but there's no way of knowing one way or the other..


the mexican runner of the olympics that train in higher altitude and do better competing with lower altitude runners is a good example of this.. i think proformance would be better but not necissarily that size would be effected

 

[BIGgourami]

and the problem with them growing larger is that oxygen couldn't deffuse through their bodys (they lacked efficient cirulatory systems) so they had to stay small so every part of their bodies get oxygenated. in higher animals such as fish and reptiles, etc... their cirulatory systems allow for greater growth... in the african bush there are elephants and in america there's pygmy shrews... shouldn't the shrew be the size of a house cat if moved to africa? does africa have a higher O2 content than north america?