Humans are not as capable of coping with rising global temperatures, said a fossil expert.
Prof. Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh, suggested that the way other mammals have previously responded to periods of climate change could provide an insight into the future of humans, the Guardian reports.
The climate crisis may cause the human race to shrink in size. He compared the potential condition of humans as similar to that of the early horses, who became smaller in body size as temperatures rose about 55 million years ago.
Brusatte notes that animals in warmer parts of the world today are often smaller than those in colder areas, an ecological principle known as the Bergmann rule. "The reasons are not fully understood, but it is probably partly because smaller animals have a larger surface area relative to their volume than larger animals and thus can better remove excess heat," he writes.
Brusatte argued that other human species shrank when resources were scarce - pointing to the so-called hobbit man, Homo floresiensis, who once inhabited the island of Flores in Indonesia.
In a recent study , researchers analyzing human remains over millions of years also suggested that temperature is a major predictor of body size change.
