• Question: How does an elephant get its size?

    Asked by crystaljeth to Alexis, Dr D, Helen, Jasmine, Mario on 17 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Jasmine Penny

      Jasmine Penny answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      What an interesting question! Like we have ancestors (grandparents, great grandparents, great, great grandparents…etc) so do elephants! Elephants haven’t always looked how they do today. Animals that lived a long time ago (as long as millions of years ago!) have adapted and changed to their environment to give them the best chance of living a long time. All of these changes have resulted in what we know as an elephant today. This gradual change over a long period of time is called evolution.

    • Photo: Andrew Devitt

      Andrew Devitt answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      I suppose we could say mice have small cells and elephants have big cells….but that’s not really, completely true. If the animal is bigger, it has more cells and this makes it bigger.

      But some cells in big animals are bigger than those in small animals.

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