Who's The Fittest?
Prompt Three
Which One?
Right now, biologists in Africa are debating on lions, and which lion should be saved. The lions are Gerorge, Dwayne, Spot, and Tyrone. The biologists say that they are "in a position where we are only able to save one of these lions." So the big question is, which one is the best of the best?
Average Age
Ages are very important, the biologists can't choose a lion to save, only to find out that the lion will live for only a short amount if time. To find out which age is the ideal age, we took the average ages of the predicted deaths of the lions. George is predicted to die in 13 years, Dwayne in 16 years, Spot in 12 years, and Tyrone in 10 years. The average age of the a lion's death turned out to be 12.75 years, making George the lion that best fits in this category.
Average Number of Cubs
Next, we took a look at the number of cubs these lions fathered. George fathered 19 cubs, Dwayne fathered 25 cubs, Spot fathered 20 cubs, and Tyrone also fathered 20 cubs. The average number of cubs a lion fathers came out as 21. All the lions fathered around this many cubs, but we also have to take a look at how many of these cubs actually lived to become adults. George had 15 of his cubs survive to adulthood, Dwayne had 14 cubs surviving, Spot also had 14 of his cubs surviving, and Tyrone had 19 surviving cubs. The average number of cubs that should survive to adulthood is 15.5, and George also matches in this category.
While Tyrone had more surviving cubs, we took into account his age at death (10) and eliminated him as the best fit. Dwayne is also eliminated because he fathered a lot of cubs, but a surprisingly large amount of them ended up dying. Spot also missed the margin for average age and the number of cubs surviving to adulthood.
Size
We then looked at the sizes of the lions. George is 10 feet, Dwayne is 8.5 feet, Spot is 9 feet, and Tyrone is also 9 feet. George is the biggest lion, which gives the impression that he is the strongest and the fittest. George also drove away more male lions trying to take over his family group than the other males did, showing us that he is strong and defends his family well.
The Winner?
So we decided that George is the fittest out of all the lions and should be the one to save. A leading biologist also came to the same conclusion. Congratulations to George!
Catherine Yoo
Mr. Byrd
Biology PAP-5