If Insects Were Bigger

futilitycloset.com

13 points·helwr··11 comments

I can't find a good link about this, but giant insects don't physically make sense. Volume and mass scale differently--there's a reason elephants have fat stubby legs and ants have tiny spindly legs, and that's because supports have to increase in surface-area-to-ground as mass increases.

I can't find a good link either, but I believe that most of the oil (for gasoline) comes from a time period of giant bugs. Like...Foot+ long giant centipedes ect.

Reminds me of the movie Mimic. What would we have to change for roaches to grow to be man-sized?

If I remember right, the movie scientists were mainly concerned about how the critters would get enough air.

http://www.saburchill.com/chapters/chap0021.html

Natural history suggests the same, long before us when the air was a lot more oxygen rich, bugs were a lot bigger!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganeura

Assuming constant density, mass scales up cubically (with volume) whereas area scales up squarely. Hence the giant stubby legs.

Read this message board thread. It lays it all out:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=...

This post is the standout:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=1147211&#...

They'd be the dominant species, and would be using bug spray on _us_.

They are the dominant species.

If insects were bigger, they'd be forced into zoos or left in the wild, not in metropolitan areas.

I'd bring a sword and shield to school everyday.

Wouldn't giant cans of bug spray be more effective?

I feel that large amounts of bug spray would have detrimental effects on other life as well.

Plus, it is much less fun than swords and shields.

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