Well, I’ll throw this one out there. The thing that animals with similar maturing rates have in common is size. I don’t know what the genetic reason is for this, but it seemed obvious to me. Therfore one reason that women mature faster than men is becuase in the end they are smaller.
Another thing, the complexity issue doesn’t work. Some of the longest living and slowest maturing creatures on Earth are Tortises and Giant Turtles. They are less complex and less evolved than mammals and birds, yet they mature much slower. Similar can be said for Crocidiles. I also think that on a smaller level cold blooded animals mature slower than warm blooded animals of the same size. This I assume is due to the much lower metabloism in cold blooded animals.
The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is
yours to draw…
>>Well, I’ll throw this one out there. The thing that animals with similar maturing rates have in common is size.<<
Somebody give this man (or, you know, whatever) a cold carbonated beverage!
Alright, now that that matter is settled everyone can start taking innane, immature jabs about who’s smarter. Oh, I see a few of you are a step ahead of me…
-Bob
I’m fuming cause my server 's down again, and those women I’ve been chasing are all men
Well, Rowan, your point about head size and birth is excellent. However, your statement about cats being born with the equivalent knowledge of a 2 1/2 year-old seems to confirm my point. Cats are highly instinctual animals. What’s more they are notorious loners. Not a lot of opportunity for learning there.
Then again, the later post about sea turtles and crocodiles seems to invalidate the whole point of the thread. I dunno.
Like I said, it was just a theory.
“The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.” -George Carlin
Omni: size? I don’t get this. Although I would guess that on the average larger animals take longer to mature, this doesn’t seem very compelling.
Most mammals larger than us (both men and women) still mature more quickly. For that matter, a horse matures more quickly than a 7-year cicada! And there are dogs in almost any size you care to choose, but I don’t hear people talking about “big-dog years” vs. “little-dog years”.
Jens, it is nearly absolute that large animals mature slower than small ones. Average is inconsiquential. Small dogs reach sexual maturity at a much faster rate than large ones. The whole dog year crap is a human created ideal to make idiots understand why dogs dies so relatively young, it has no scientific basis and does not apply to a relative maturity, if it did one could explain that 7 year old children are sexualy mature.
Also no, mammals larger than us do not mature quicker. Elephants gestate(s?) for 11 months if my discovery channel is accurate. The whole cicada arguement is wrong because they are not gestating, they are in a type of hibernation.
The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is
yours to draw…
You are switching back and forth between gestation and maturing here. Elephants have a longer gestation period than we do (22-24 months, not 10, according to seaworld.org); hippopotamus have a slightly shorter period (230 days); the manatee, gestates 12-14 months. In fact, it beats even the blue whale (11 months). Dogs gestate in a little over two months regardless of size. The baikal seal, one of the worlds smallest seals, takes 11 months to gestate despite being no larger than I am. Bears, most larger than we are, gestate 6-9 months.
But under maturing I understood something more akin to sexual maturity, and there:
Camels 3-4 years
Northern Elephant Seal 3-5 years (5000lbs)
Humans ~12 years
Small-Large dogs - 6 months
Giant dogs - 9 months
Cats - 9 months
Birds 1-2 years
Polar Bears - 4-6 years
Walrus 8-10 (male), 5-6 (female)
Lion 4-5 years
Chimpanzee 6-10 (female), 7-8 (male)
Crocodile ~10 years
African Elephant 10 years
There is undeniably some large scale correlation, you can finish a mouse in weeks. But to say that animals with similar maturing rates (say cats and giant dogs, or elephants and crocodiles) share the same size is a stronger statement than the data warrants.
There still seems to be confusion over trends between species and trends within a species. You can’t use one to rationalize the other, in general.
My Take On It, then:
Men reach sexual maturity slightly later because men’s sexual functioning (with the conditions under which humanity evolved) required larger size. Like other primates, males compete (or at least competed) for females much more than females compete for males. This competition required larger size, more muscular development, greater agression. For females to enter puberty, essentially some hormones have to be turned on - all the equipment is already there. For males, hormones turn on, and then those hormones have to have the effects of growth that prepare males to compete with each other effectively. This takes a little time.
Men mature later emotionally for different, though related reasons. But I won’t to go into that.
The greater size for two organisms of the same species developing in parallel (more-or-less) up to a point, then diverging, requires later maturation for the larger. This is different for the case of comparing, say, camels and hippos. The cross-species trend will certainly be correlated with size, but not perfectly.
>>Men mature later emotionally for different, though related reasons. But I won’t to go into that.<<
Which has an awful lot to do with when they are expected to mature. Historically, individuals of either sex have matured emotionally at almost precisely the age that society expected them to. Just something to think about.
>> And there are dogs in almost any size you care to choose, but I don’t hear people talking about “big-dog years” vs. “little-dog years”.<< --jens
Unfortunately, this is true. Great Danes have a life expectancy of about 8 years. Labs, Shepherds, and dogs of their size live about 12-14 years. Toy Poodles (there’s no justice) , have a life expectancy of TWENTY years.
–Rowan
Shopping is still cheaper than therapy. --my Aunt Franny
