I watched David Attenborough’s “Life of Mammals” last week, and he said an interesting comment - that the average size of a primate troop can be accurately determined from the size on its brain. At a guess, it was a straight linear regression on modern primate data. Based on this theory, can anyone say what was the natural troop size for modern humans (H. sapians) and/or neanderthals? How does it compare to non-primates with complex social interaction like whales and dolphins?
IF this is the same thing you’re talking about, the following site seems to indicate a human troop size of 150:
http://www.zoologi.su.se/research/lindenfors/ Images&Files/02JEB-15.pdf (Adobe Acrobat required)
or http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:XvBzxEWDrZ4J:www.zoologi.su.se/research/lindenfors/Images%26Files/02JEB-15.pdf+brain+size+primate+troop&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 (in the Google cached version)
I have no idea what the numbers for cetaceans or other primates would be.
Close tomndebb, but I think the correlation was between cranial (sp?) volume and group size, rather than body mass.
Still, it’s an interesting read - it’s been ages since I’ve read a non chemistry/engineering scientific paper.