The next time your mom or dad complains that you're being lazy, just tell 'em that it's a good evolutionary strategy.
Turns out, creatures with high basal metabolic rate have higher likelihood of death:
Species of mollusks that are now extinct had higher metabolic rates than the species that exist today, scientists announced in a paper published this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Metabolic rates are the amount of energy that organisms need to carry out their daily lives. Luke Strotz, a paleontologist and post-doctoral researcher at the University of Kansas who is lead author of the paper, says that a high basal metabolic rate has already been shown to lead to a higher likelihood of death at the individual level.
Image: Neogene Atlas of Ancient Life / University of Kansas