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[Loki]

I like how Lucky Forward's link is rife with speculation as to why insects could never grow to be that large, yet fails to account for the fact that, in order to achieve such a great size (and to thrive at that size), these insects would undoubtedly possess various evolutionary adaptations that they presently do not; this fact alone negates most of the claims made. It's like saying, "hey, what if humans lived on the bottom of the ocean?", and then someone points out that our skeletal system (or soft tissue, or anything, really) could not support the increased pressure. Well...duh.


Way to kill the fun of imagining it, there, Lucky.

 

[mrkgoo]

Technically speaking, if ants were scaled to the size of a dog, they probably wouldn't have the strength to walk around. Something few people realise is that when you scale something like that up, when a length scales up by, say, afactor of ten, the volume and mass scales up by a factor of 1000. That is, the realtionship of scaling up a length is cubed when scaling up in volume. A similar thing applies when scaling up the stress and strain properties of materials. The strength and strain of a giant ants legs would probably crumble under the weight of it's body. It's also a reason, I understand, why there aren'y many really large animals, at least on land, that have exoskeletons over endoskeletons.

/end science lesson

 

[Do The Mario]

Respiration would be impossible, it couldn’t biologically happen.

 

[aoi tsuki]

If ant were as big as dogs, i'm thinking those French AIDS ads where people are screwing insects (arachnids, or whatever) would be just a little bit less disturbing.

 

[White Man]

If ant were as big as dogs, i'm thinking those French AIDS ads where people are screwing insects (arachnids, or whatever) would be just a little bit less disturbing.

Tell me about it. All these crazy liberals would want to marry the giant ants and let them have insurance benefits and tax breaks.

Only Joan Collins can save us!

That's what I've been saying for years.

 

[Do The Mario]

Reparatory gases are transported between the outside air and every cell in the body by tracheae, branching tubes lined with cuticle that open at the body surface by holes called spiracles. The small size of insects (the largest present day species is the size of a mouse and most are very much smaller) is dictated partly by the requirements of the tracheal system but probably even more by the difficulty of supporting the body in air when the exoskeleton is shed at molting. Insects usually dominate ecological niches requiring small size.

Moore, J (2001). An Introduction to The Invertebrates, Cambridge Press.

Pg 223

 

[Neutron Night]

NUMBERS, people.

"Scientists estimate that there are one quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) ants living on the earth at any given time."

ONE QUADRILLION. If every ant we have now turns into a giant killer dog-sized ant, every man, woman, and child on earth will have to kill 166,000 ants each to eliminate the threat. 1 against 166,000... we can't win with those odds, dammit

Those numbers are way off. It's more like 100 million to one. I remember reading:

Combined weight of all ants in world > combined weight of all humans

500k ants = 1 pound

 

[Pedigree Chum]

They have power in numbers and strength.

We have our brains and weapons.

Who'd be the dominant species?

I personally think we'd be done for. Fucking ants, man. If they even get to the size of rats we're fucked. And has their ever been a movie with big ants as the monsters? Shit, big ants >>>>> zombies.

And considering they can lift twize their body wheight they'd be able to toss us around like ragdolls :O