Godzilla has grown larger over the years, as you can see in this graph. In 1954, the movie monster was only 50 meters (164 feet) tall (as if that isn’t tall enough). In the 2014 movie, opening later this month, Godzilla is estimated to be about 150 meters (492 feet) tall! Deep Sea News crunches the numbers to study this size change and speculate on its meaning.
So why is Godzilla obtaining ever larger sizes with time? Skyscrapers. Skyscraper height has increased dramatically over the last century. For Godzilla to continue to plow through buildings in major metropolises, a more formidable size is needed. Of course this size change can only be evolutionarily adaptive if it changes the fitness of Godzilla, i.e. in the simplest case the number of offspring passed to the next generation. If Godzilla is able to topple buildings this might allow for greater acquisition of resources in this case food in the form of people. This would increase the lifespan of Godzilla allow for more reproduction or allow for greater amount of energy to be passed to the offspring increasing their rate of survival Or perhaps toppling buildings is a sexual display that sexual partners cue on.
via Neatorama
Image: Deep Sea News
