A study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution challenges the traditional belief that larger animals have proportionally bigger brains.

Researchers from the University of Reading and Durham University analyzed brain and body sizes across 1,500 species, revealing a non-linear relationship between brain size and body size.

Humans and other outlier species like primates, rodents, and carnivores have evolved rapidly in terms of brain size, with humans evolving more than 20 times faster than other mammal species.

Recent fossil findings suggest that big brains may have evolved by accident, raising questions about their evolutionary benefits.

This new perspective challenges previous assumptions about the brain-body mass relationship and offers valuable insights into the co-evolutionary dynamics of mammalian brain and body size.