Extreme weapon size is relative to body size, not absolute

Evidence

Extreme weapons were all about proportion. Some of the most magnificent structures are borne by tiny creatures. Hiding in drawer after drawer of dried, pinned specimens in museum archives, for example, are uncountable numbers of oddball species: beetles with front legs so long they have to be folded awkwardly around the animal in order to shut the lid on the case, or horns so big the animals have to be mounted in the drawer sideways. Many species are so small that their weapons become apparent only with a microscope: twisted tusks protruding from the faces of West African wasps, for example, or broad, branched antlers adorning the faces of flies. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 3

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the book’s core definition: ‘extreme’ means proportionally oversized relative to body, which is why tiny beetles and wasps qualify.
• XREF: connects to: Weapon size should track resource availability more than any mandatory body part — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 338; Weapons are better signals than body size because they vary from zero to enormous — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 353; Aircraft arms races favored speed and maneuverability over size — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 542 (+2 more)

Related

• Weapons are better signals than body size because they vary from zero to enormous (similarity 0.87)
• Animal weapons evolved to extremes far beyond practical size (similarity 0.87)
• Weapon size in animal species is under stabilizing selection, not open-ended directional selection (similarity 0.85)
• Extreme weapon size faces stabilizing, not open-ended, selection in real populations (similarity 0.84)
• Weapon size should track resource availability more than any mandatory body part (similarity 0.84)
• Variation in animal weapon size is explainable by species ecology and behavior. (similarity 0.84)
• Species with huge weapons often show weak current selection on them. (similarity 0.83)
• Balanced selection keeps most animal weapons modest rather than extreme. (similarity 0.82)
• Growing large weapons diverts resources and stunts other body parts (similarity 0.82)
• Weapon growth is far more resource-sensitive than other body parts (similarity 0.81)
• The same three ingredients trigger weapon evolution across wildly divergent animal clades (similarity 0.81)
• Extreme weapons evolved independently across roughly three thousand species (similarity 0.81)
• Dung beetles offer the ideal study system for extreme weapon evolution. (similarity 0.81)
• Weapons in arms races get so big they impair other bodily functions (similarity 0.81)
• Predator weapons stay small because larger ones hinder hunting (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Animal weapons evolved to extremes far beyond practical size #corroborates (0.60) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 2