Well, George was wrong. So, you know, I hope you like sardines.
According to Queen Mary University of London:
Warmer temperatures cause greater reduction in the adult sizes of aquatic animals than in land-dwellers in a new study by scientists from Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Liverpool. …
The researchers compared the extent to which the adult size of 169 terrestrial, freshwater, and marine species responded to different non-harmful temperatures, in the largest study of its kind.
Summarising the results, co-author Dr Andrew Hirst from Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, said: “Aquatic animals shrink 10 times more than land-dwellers in species the size of large insects or small fish. While animals in water decrease in size by 5 percent for every degree Celsius of warming, similarly sized species on land shrink, on average, by just half a percent.“
Hope you enjoyed your time at the top of Guinness charts, great blue whale. It’s time land animals had our shot.
On a somewhat unrelated note, did you know that the entirety of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is available on YouTube? It is!
Turns out all stupid Rick Moranis had to do was immerse his kids in a pool of water and burn fossil fuels for a few centuries.