Forget 'survival of the fittest' – the laziest will inherit the earth

Species which use the most energy in their daily lives die out quicker than less energetic animals, say evolutionary biologists

It is the perfect comeback for those who are admonished for not pulling their weight. Never mind that work is piling up, being lazy is a winning evolutionary strategy that postpones the extinction of the species.

That, at least, is one interpretation. Researchers who studied nearly 300 forms of mollusc that lived and died in the Atlantic over the past five million years found that a high metabolism predicted which species had gone the way of the dodo.