"Nerves have a maximum speed limit of about 180 feet per second, said Maxwell Donelan, the study’s lead author. “It makes sense that in a large animal, like an elephant, messages have a longer way to travel,” he said. Dr. Donelan believes that large animals may have to compensate for this handicap by thinking ahead, and avoiding risky situations. “That’s what we want to study next,” he said. “It could be that the nervous systems of large animals have evolved to become excellent predictive machines.”" - Lit