How the Animals Got Their Shapes: Surface Area to Volume Ratio, Testing to Determine its Role in Thermoregulation.

Abstract

Over the year’s scientist have noticed that animal species who belong to the same genera tend to vary from one to another: in eight, length, color and much more. One hypothesis behind why animals vary from one to another is that, region, which they call home, dissipates their overall body shape or surface area to volume ratio; so an important question to ask is; how does surface area to volume ratio affect animals living in a particular environment? The problem with testing this hypothesis is that, not all animals in a particular region are identical to one another. In this experiment, animals were not used, rather clay was. The clay could be molded into any necessary form, for this experiment the form was a sphere, also clay is easier to handle than live animals. Our experiment tested heat transfer, into and out of an object, coming to the realization that objects with high surface area to volume ratio. This study will explain why animals of a certain size are found in certain locations around the world.