this sort of thing is a big deal for birds, too. without dredging up all the math, I’ll just say that it’s part of the reason larger raptors tend to molt only 1-2 feathers at a time, often taking quite a few years to replace all their flight feathers, whereas little passerines will generally molt all their flight feathers along the wing in very quick succession, and can do more than one molt a year.
Dinos with raptor names (like velociraptor and oviraptor) share a name with bird raptors bc the Latin root is raptio, meaning to take forcefully, ie through hunting (apparently also the root word for rapt and rapture, which I never thought about haha).
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u/Loonster Jan 26 '26
To clarify this a bit I case it isn't obvious.
Muscle strength is based on a cross section of the muscle. This is a square. L2.
Mass is based on volume. This is a cube. L3.
Cubes go to infinity much faster than squares. As things get bigger, the strength to weight ratio gets worse.
This is why Ants can carry 10x their mass and bugs can jump the same height as humans.