The largest animals do not have proportionally bigger brains -- with humans bucking this trend -- a new study has revealed.
Researchers at the University of Reading and Durham University collected an enormous dataset of brain and body sizes from around 1,500 species to clarify centuries of controversy surrounding brain size evolution.
Professor Chris Venditti, lead author of the study from the University of Reading, said:"For more than a century, scientists have assumed that this relationship was linear -- meaning that brain size gets proportionally bigger, the larger an animal is. We now know this is not true. The relationship between brain and body size is a curve, essentially meaning very large animals have smaller brains than expected.
All groups of mammals demonstrated rapid bursts of change -- both towards smaller and larger brain sizes. For example, bats very rapidly reduced their brain size when they first arose, but then showed very slow rates of change in relative brain size, suggesting there may be evolutionary constraints related to the demands of flight.
Dr Joanna Baker, co-author of the study also from the University of Reading, said:"Our results reveal a mystery. In the largest animals, there is something preventing brains from getting too big. Whether this is because big brains beyond a certain size are simply too costly to maintain remains to be seen.
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