Adaptive Variation in the Rate of Energy Discharge
What chance for survival would a skunk have without
odor; a cobra without venom; a turtle without carapace;
or a porcupine shorn of its barbs, in an environment of powerful
and hostile carnivora? And yet in such an hostile environment
many unprotected animals survive by their
muscular power of flight alone. It is evident that the provision
for the storage of "adaptive" energy is not the only
evolved characteristic which relates to the energy of the
body. The more the self-preservation of the animal depends
on motor activity, the greater is the range of variation
in the rate of discharge of energy. The rate of energy discharge
is especially high in animals evolved along the line of
hunter and hunted, such as the carnivora and the herbivora
of the great plains.
