Thursday, March 06, 2008

Babies

Ladybird larvae hatching
"Any organism has only a finite amount of time, energy and resources that it can acquire and expend during its lifetime. Its own life, like that of its babies, is also fraught with uncertainties and risks. It must when reproducing decide how best to distribute its efforts with these in mind. Several decisions have to be made. At what age must the organism begin reproduction? How many young would be ideal to produce at each reproductive event, how many reproductive events should it have in its lifetime? What is the ideal size for the young? Even deciding the sexes of the young can form part of the optimisation process."

From the Babies chapter.

4 comments:

Rahul Siddharthan said...

Reminds me of a remark by Bernard Shaw: "The photographer is like the cod, which lays a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity." (He said that in 1906 but it seems truer in the digital age...)

Natasha Mhatre said...

A billion mundane eggs and more on Flickr and counting.

Shivani Singh said...

Thank you for that missing step in Karthik's blog.And also for the rest.So these oblong tiny eggs are they golden yellow in colour?

Natasha Mhatre said...

Yes, Shivani they are. They're very striking, so you do spot them if they are on the plant.