Justin D. Yeakel bio photo

Justin D. Yeakel

Associate Professor
Biology Program Chair
UC Merced
External Professor
Santa Fe Institute

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The Middle Eocene predator Andrewsarchus by J.D. Yeakel (June 2023).

T his one was a challenge, and there are parts that I like and parts that I'm not so sure about. With some creative liberties, this artiodactyl is thought to have been the largest terrestrial mammalian predator, topping the scales at roughly 1000 Kg! We explore how the energetic requirements of terrestrial predators this large would crash herbivore populations, that is if contemporary predator-prey mass relationships are followed (predator-prey mass relationships document the expected prey mass for a given predator mass, or sometimes the expected predator mass for a given prey mass). We explore these ideas in a paper that's currently in revision at *American Naturalist*. You can find the ArXived version here.