Now

> Hello Dr. Molumby, > I attended your bio 101 class last year. I had a weird insight today > and I had no idea who to go to, I just want to know what you think of > it. I saw a squirrel on my front lawn and I realized that a lot of > small animals like squirrels and rabbits tend to make very quick, > jerky movements and they seem to react very quickly. Then, an image > popped into my mind of a large godzilla moving very slowly. > > Then I asked myself, how would godzilla perceive the way humans move? > Then another thought came up; Do different animals have a different > perceptions of time? Maybe to a squirrel, we humans look very slow and > cumbersome as we see godzilla, but I have no idea how anyone would be > able to see how other animals perceive time. Another strange > correlation I came up with (based on my general knowledge and > generally speaking) was that some quicker moving animals seem to have > a shorter lifespan than animals that move slower. This may be a very > loose correlation, but I thought of squirrels being the quickest, > humans in the middle and then land tortoises as the slowest/longest > living. I just find this interesting. If you know of any information > or have any opinions about this please let me know! I'd also like to > add that I enjoyed your teaching style as well as the content of the > class; fortunately i was in your rare discussion class due to > Veronica's schedule conflicts, I enjoyed that as well. > > Thanks for your time, > Steve....

hi, i think you are on to something in that large animals move slowly. plenty of physics in that.....muscles and bones do not scale evenly as an animal grows. it is energetically inexpensive for an elephant to move long distances, compared to a mouse, but accelerating and decelerating are very expensive. Godzilla cannot be made out of flesh and bone because even thick bones could not support a 600foot reptile, on land at least. Oddly enough, we suspect that there are differences in time perception as well, because the nerve impulses from my fingers take a fraction of a second to reach my brain, eye impulses less time, and the brain smoothes it all out to create the illusion of simultaneity......so maybe an instant is shorter to a shrew than to a leopard, yes. as for lifespan....on one hand, all animals share a similar superchiasmatic nucleus, a brain-timekeeper, so all animals perceive time, in some sense, but long term perceptions of time must also depend upon memory, which varies. Tortoises have incredible memories for some things, yes, but I doubt that they construct a narrative of the past like we do. My money is on Elephants, for having the longest view of now, and gobies, shrews, or finches for the shortest. Not sure if now exists at all for an insect. great question...keep em coming. (Will post question and response on my blog if you do not mind, will remove yr name...) a