ORIGINAL: pony80
I think the weight thing has to do with the heat. I had a chance to see one near Uvalde a couple years back......had a 100 lb doe about 12 feet up in a tree wedged in a limb fork. We saw the doe from a distance and had no idea what it was until we got closer.....then we saw the cat run off.....it was a great opportunity to look at my then 10 yr old son, and say ...." now how much do you weigh...??" ....he smiled and said.....about 100 pounds........we both laughed...but also realized.....there are things in Texas that can hurt ya alot worse than in SE Missouri. Back to the heat ...a Taxidermy guy told me right away the coyote I brought him was from Texas...I asked how he knew...he said the ears are bigger to ventilate the heat.....a dead giveaway....and the bodies are leaner...they simply cannot carry that much weight in South Texas....just too damn hot. Thus the deer bodies, big cats..coyotes ..maybe they all follow suite....
Righto! The plants and animals in different regions have spent generations adapting to their environment. Bigger bodies retain heat energy much more efficiently, while smaller bodies lose heat much more rapidly. They do this because mass increases at a much higher rate than surface area, and surface area is where the heat is lost. This is also why the ears are smaller in cold environments and larger in warm enviornments, because the ears have very little mass and a larger surface area.