{"id":296494,"date":"2026-02-22T10:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T10:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/296494\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T10:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T10:21:07","slug":"how-the-decline-and-fall-of-the-roman-empire-stunted-the-size-of-domestic-and-wild-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/296494\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Stunted the Size of Domestic and Wild Animals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jaidaelcock.com\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener nofollow\">Jaida Elcock<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/laughingsquid.com\/?s=SciShow\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener nofollow\">SciShow<\/a> explained how the decline and fall of the <a href=\"https:\/\/laughingsquid.com\/?s=Roman+Empire\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener nofollow\">Roman Empire<\/a> essentially stunted the growth of wild animals.<\/p>\n<p>Where there had previously been large\u00a0farms supplying crops and animals to the vast Roman cities, there were now smaller farms and villages focused on seeing to their own needs. This created less of a surplus\u00a0available for domestic and wild animals, ultimately stalling their growth.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1130\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Roman-Empire-Stunted-Animals.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Roman Empire Stunted Animals\" style=\"object-fit:cover;\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated Posts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jaida Elcock of SciShow explained how the decline and fall of the Roman Empire essentially stunted the growth&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-296494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}