Australia is currently in the grip of a record-breaking heat wave. It’s all over the news, like sunburn on an English tourist at Bondi.
Kit asked, “Why do people always complain about the heat?”
“The weather’s heating up due to climate change, and we’re not used to it,” I replied.
“Well, neither is any other species! But you don’t hear us carping on about it,” Kit objected.
“Yes, well, in our defense,” I began, with absolutely no defense in mind, but thinking at the speed that bad news travels (which is Very Fast Indeed), “You carp on the other nine months of the year about how freezing cold it is when it drops below 25°C.”
“Well, so do you!” Kit huffed, making the kind of noise that an ear, nose and throat specialist would hear on a regular basis.
“True, but normal people feel the heat more than meerkats; I’m not often accused of being normal.”
“Why?” he asked.
Kit is pretty much grown up, now that he knows where meerkat kits come from, so I gave him the scientific explanation:
“Humans are a lot larger than meerkats, and the larger the animal, the more heat we retain. It’s all about thermoregulation. In fact, I wrote about this in my Master’s Thesis,” I explained, going on excitedly, “Bergmann’s Rule, states that similar animals in hotter areas tend to be smaller. This is because the surface area to mass ratio is inversely proportional to the size of the object. This means that when the weather heats up, larger animals stay hotter for longer. ”
In my element, I explained the finer points of the theory, and drew a diagram for Kit. I was most excited to have someone, who was genuinely interested, to share this with. Maybe Kit would grow up to be a scientist. He could discover something incredible, like the gene for correct grammar, and nobody would ever need to go without proper punctuation and syntax ever again! I broke from my reverie to talk Kit through my (if I may say so) incredibly informative and engaging diagram.
He was nowhere to be seen.
“Kit!” I called, “Don’t ask a question and then walk away.”
“Oh, sorry,” he called from the next room, where I found him cramming beetles into some sort of sack, “I actually meant, why aren’t you often accused of being normal? But, now that I think about it, the answer’s obvious.”
Kit neglected to elaborate on my obvious abnormalities, and continued, “You were enjoying yourself so much that I didn’t like to interrupt. I stopped listening after, ‘Similar species of animals in hotter areas tend to be smaller.’ That’s wrong, by the way. All the bugs are bigger where it’s hotter.* So, I snuck out to see how many bugs I could fit in my pillow case. Twenty-seven, in case you’re interested. Although, it’s possible I could fit a few more; I ran out of bugs. Can we please go and catch some?”
“Sure,” I agreed, grudgingly, “Why not?”
Kit may not be interested in thermoregulation, but he did collect enough bugs to test his theory that he could fit at least 30 beetles and a praying mantis into his pillow case. I suspect you will be more pleased than I was to know that he succeeded!
*The author would like it noted that Bergmann’s Rule is typically applied only to endothermic (‘warm blooded’) animals. Not ‘bugs.’ In addition, the author would like it noted that she couldn’t be bothered explaining this to Kit. Best to let him have his little wins.