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The smallest adult chihuahuas weigh about 2 kg, and the largest adult English Mastiffs are around 104 kg, making them 52 times larger by weight.

Of course, this enormous variance is the result of selective breeding (i.e., artificial selection). What's the greatest variance, in relative terms, that has been observed in the naturally selected adults of a given mammalian species? For example, are there any mammalian species for which it is possible to observe (in the wild) individual adults that differ in size (be it weight, height, length, or some other measure) by a factor of 50, or even 20 or 10? Are there any environmental factors that might encourage such a large size variance within a species?

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    $\begingroup$ Is the difference between male and female individuals something you are interested in? This is the biggest difference I am aware of, with elephant seal males being up to 10 times the size of females (from wikipedia, females 400 to 900 kg males 2,200 to 4,000 kg) $\endgroup$
    – User65535
    Commented May 25, 2022 at 13:37
  • $\begingroup$ If the greatest variance is from sexual dimorphism, then sure, that certainly counts. But in that case it would also be nice to know the greatest variance that doesn't involve sexual dimorphism. $\endgroup$
    – Psychonaut
    Commented May 25, 2022 at 13:40
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    $\begingroup$ I bet you would like this paper, about how much variation there is and why. I do not think it answers your question exactly though. This paper is about sexual dimorphism in pinnipeds like elephant seal. $\endgroup$
    – User65535
    Commented May 25, 2022 at 13:50
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    $\begingroup$ I tend to find trivia-style questions to be not particularly useful contributions to this site, unless you can express some biologically interesting question to address with that trivia answer. The help asks that you should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face - what's the actual problem to solve here? $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented May 25, 2022 at 15:28
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    $\begingroup$ If you're after trivia, the Guinness World of Records is great for individual specimens. Jon Brower Minnoch comes in at around 300 times heavier than Lucia Xarate in humans, for example. $\endgroup$
    – Jiminy Cricket.
    Commented May 25, 2022 at 16:42

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