When put in a sealed room together who would suffocate first, an elephant or a mouse?

[GhoternLit]

Say you have a room, the dimensions are 20’ x 20’ x 20’. Inside of it you put an elephant and a mouse. You then seal the room, airtight. Which one would suffocate first? Assume that they mouse and elephant do not interact in any way, e.g. the elephant does not lie down and crush the mouse. They are also not expending too much energy, as in running around the enclosed space. Since the mouse has smaller lungs, will it die first, not being able to draw in as much oxygen as the elephant? Or will the elephant go first, since it requires much more oxygen than the mouse? Are there more factors here at work? Will they die at the same time?

 

By the way, this is purely theoretical, I wish no harm to neither mice nor elephants.

[ultma]

when in a airtight room you die from CO2 poisoning assuming the LD100 of CO2/kg was the same for both mouse and elephant the mouse would die first since it had a smaller mass, but that would also depend on rate of breathing and volume of breath my guess would be the mouse hass lots of small breaths while the elephant has few large breaths

 

my moneys on the mouse to die first

[Daecon]

I would guess the Elephant because it needs more oxygen to survive.

 

Once the O2 level went below a certain amount, the Elephant would no longer have enough to breathe, while the Mouse could still survive.

 

Although I'd have to assume that while the Elephant would suffocate first, it would only be a very short time before the Mouse suffocates as well, because the Elephant would be taking in much more O2 than the Mouse could on it's own.

 

EDIT: If the Mouse has a higher metabolism than the Elephant, would it also need to have a higher respiration rate, therefore need slightly more Oxygen in the air than the lowest amount the Elephant needs to survive? In which case the Mouse would die first, once the air becomes Oxygen-depleted enough?

 

Or nature could mean all the variables balance out equally and both die at the same time...

[ecoli]

ultma's right, though. The elevated carbon dioxide levels would be more importance than the decreased oxygen, I think.

[YT2095]

the mouse, for the same reasons a canary was used in coal mines.

[Phi for All]

the mouse, for the same reasons a canary was used in coal mines.

But wasn't a canary used because the elephant wouldn't fit in the portable cage? Also, I believe canaries were used to detect CO and methane, which held other dangers for the miners than CO2 poisoning.

 

I think the mouse would survive longer. It's respiration rate is 33 times what the elephant's is (~163/minute as opposed to ~5/minute) but the elephant is 15,000 times bigger, breathing in a much greater share of the CO2 that will kill it before oxygen deprivation will.

[YT2095]

inversely. elephants live out in the fresh air, mice can be all huddled up in a small space for weeks fast asleep to hibernate, elephants have no hibernation mechanism, so maybe the mouse?

 

I can get the Mouse, someone else will need to donate the Elephant (and a large enough test tube).

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The one that would suffocate first would be the animal rights activist desperately trying to get the elephant and the mouse out of the sealed box.

[geoguy]

I watched an old Mickey Mouse Cartoon from the 20's and Mickey is sitting in a bar smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. Perhaps all mice are smokers and therefore have ineficient oxygen intake. Never seen Dumbo smoke so my money is on the mouse kicking the bucket first.

[John Cuthber]

Might the mouse go into hibernation? If so that would probably save it.

 

Incidentally, canaries can fly; to do that they need to be able to generate lots of power for their size. To do that they need very efficient lungs and circulatory systems. When they are at rest they presumably have lots of "spare capacity". The miners can't fly and they are working relatively hard (even if all they are doing is walking along carrying a canary in a cage).

Who dies from anoxia first, the canary or the miner?

Also, did you know that the cages had covers and air tanks so the birds were OK?

[Daecon]

The Elephant. Upon seeing the Mouse it would panic and start to hyperventilate, reducing the Oxygen until it suffocated.

 

The mouse would just be sitting there with a bemused look on it's face.