Growing up in an area with big ant hills, I just can't wrap my head around the fact that there are more ants by weight than all other mammals combined. Because I can imagine a small forest with multiple of these ant hills which undoubtedly have millions of ants, but at the same time an apartment building with a few humans in it would surely outweigh all of those ants. So where are all the ants hiding?
Wow. That shows how much wildlife we've killed off.
Whales, buffalo, elephants, and the list goes on. In a balanced world, I feel like we shouldn't have more mass than the total of all these massive creatures.
I wonder in what year human biomass passed wild mammal biomass.
Pretty sure it's less the reduced wildlife and more the efficient food production of / for humans. Modern agriculture is crazy efficient compared to grazing, foraging and such - in forests, where the relatively "unproductive" trees get most of the light.
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Growing up in an area with big ant hills, I just can't wrap my head around the fact that there are more ants by weight than all other mammals combined. Because I can imagine a small forest with multiple of these ant hills which undoubtedly have millions of ants, but at the same time an apartment building with a few humans in it would surely outweigh all of those ants. So where are all the ants hiding?
They specify wild mammals. Humans are like 600 megatons I think.
Wow. That shows how much wildlife we've killed off.
Whales, buffalo, elephants, and the list goes on. In a balanced world, I feel like we shouldn't have more mass than the total of all these massive creatures.
I wonder in what year human biomass passed wild mammal biomass.
Pretty sure it's less the reduced wildlife and more the efficient food production of / for humans. Modern agriculture is crazy efficient compared to grazing, foraging and such - in forests, where the relatively "unproductive" trees get most of the light.
60 megatons. Study mentions that the 12 megatons of ants are equivalent to 20% of the total human mass.
About 500 megatons. 7e9 humans * 0.075 tons/human / 1e6 tons/megaton
No, 600 megatons (~E12 kg) is closer. There are E10 humans and we weigh E2 kg. More precisely: 6E1 kg * 8E9 = 5.6E11
Numbers are to be considered about dehydrated mass, again according to the study.
Interesting. I didn’t read the study. I wonder if that favors smaller animals? Are large mammals a larger fraction water?