I was watching "Clint's Reptiles" and getting annoyed by his pessimism about the possibility of giant ants.
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I was watching "Clint's Reptiles" and getting annoyed by his pessimism about the possibility of giant ants. But, he made and off-hand comment that struck me: Winged insects generally do not molt once they have their wings.
In insect development there are two main models: metamorphose or just molting and generally getting bigger without a dramatic transformation.
Molting once you have wings is a problem.
Don't know why I never put that together myself.
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I was watching "Clint's Reptiles" and getting annoyed by his pessimism about the possibility of giant ants. But, he made and off-hand comment that struck me: Winged insects generally do not molt once they have their wings.
In insect development there are two main models: metamorphose or just molting and generally getting bigger without a dramatic transformation.
Molting once you have wings is a problem.
Don't know why I never put that together myself.
"The Case for Giant Ants: Why ants could probably become huge if just given the chance and why we should be happy about this."
This talk will cover:
* The versatility of exoskeletons and why they can be large.
* The breathing problem and ways around it.
* How Giant Ants could help people.
* What is "giant" for an ant? 10cm ants might still be "small" but really they are also "huge"
* Psychological barriers: how anti-ant sentiment inhibits our imagination.Welcome to my TED talk etc. etc.
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I was watching "Clint's Reptiles" and getting annoyed by his pessimism about the possibility of giant ants. But, he made and off-hand comment that struck me: Winged insects generally do not molt once they have their wings.
In insect development there are two main models: metamorphose or just molting and generally getting bigger without a dramatic transformation.
Molting once you have wings is a problem.
Don't know why I never put that together myself.
@futurebird
-humans keep shedding skin
-humans don't have wings
-maybe this is why we don't have wings
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@futurebird
-humans keep shedding skin
-humans don't have wings
-maybe this is why we don't have wings -
"The Case for Giant Ants: Why ants could probably become huge if just given the chance and why we should be happy about this."
This talk will cover:
* The versatility of exoskeletons and why they can be large.
* The breathing problem and ways around it.
* How Giant Ants could help people.
* What is "giant" for an ant? 10cm ants might still be "small" but really they are also "huge"
* Psychological barriers: how anti-ant sentiment inhibits our imagination.Welcome to my TED talk etc. etc.
@futurebird so, if i were a mad scientist, hypothetically, and willing to do unspeakable damage to our worlds current ecosystem, which i am not ofc, let's say I wanted to make sure ants in the size of a middlesized truck would roam earth... what would I, no I mean a hypothetical mad scientist, yeah, that one, what would they have to do in order to achieve that?
Not speaking about doing this and riding ants like a horse which would be amazingly cool and awesome, of course, just, like, hypothetically
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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@futurebird so, if i were a mad scientist, hypothetically, and willing to do unspeakable damage to our worlds current ecosystem, which i am not ofc, let's say I wanted to make sure ants in the size of a middlesized truck would roam earth... what would I, no I mean a hypothetical mad scientist, yeah, that one, what would they have to do in order to achieve that?
Not speaking about doing this and riding ants like a horse which would be amazingly cool and awesome, of course, just, like, hypothetically
What about the square-cube law? Breathing isn't the only thing that won't work properly in a truck-sized ant. Not without extensive redesign, at least.
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I was watching "Clint's Reptiles" and getting annoyed by his pessimism about the possibility of giant ants. But, he made and off-hand comment that struck me: Winged insects generally do not molt once they have their wings.
In insect development there are two main models: metamorphose or just molting and generally getting bigger without a dramatic transformation.
Molting once you have wings is a problem.
Don't know why I never put that together myself.
@futurebird i wonder if it would be possible for a "perennial" insect to evolve that periodically molts into a winged form, then molts into a wingless form for a while before going back into a winged form sometime in the future
(yes i am thinking about the viability of immortal elven bug people again) -
@futurebird i wonder if it would be possible for a "perennial" insect to evolve that periodically molts into a winged form, then molts into a wingless form for a while before going back into a winged form sometime in the future
(yes i am thinking about the viability of immortal elven bug people again)@apophis @futurebird I don’t know if it’s ever evolved for insects, but some jellyfish have this kind of cyclic regeneration thing. All of the parts have evolved separately, so I don’t see a reason why the combination couldn’t, in theory.
I suspect it would be unlikely because, normally, evolution selects against immortality. If a species is immortal, it either creates more offspring and competes with the, for resources and goes extinct, or it stops producing offspring (or produces them at a rate that accounts for accidental deaths only) and therefore stops being subject to mutations and so can’t evolve to adapt to changing circumstances.
That said, if it’s a metamorphosis style transformation rather than a simple moulting, there is scope for transcription errors there and so possibly it would continue to evolve.
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@futurebird so, if i were a mad scientist, hypothetically, and willing to do unspeakable damage to our worlds current ecosystem, which i am not ofc, let's say I wanted to make sure ants in the size of a middlesized truck would roam earth... what would I, no I mean a hypothetical mad scientist, yeah, that one, what would they have to do in order to achieve that?
Not speaking about doing this and riding ants like a horse which would be amazingly cool and awesome, of course, just, like, hypothetically
@celestialfin @futurebird
A further colleague of mine graduated on some research where they knocked out a growth regulator gene in caterpillars. They grew to the size of rats.
Perhaps you need to start there
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I was watching "Clint's Reptiles" and getting annoyed by his pessimism about the possibility of giant ants. But, he made and off-hand comment that struck me: Winged insects generally do not molt once they have their wings.
In insect development there are two main models: metamorphose or just molting and generally getting bigger without a dramatic transformation.
Molting once you have wings is a problem.
Don't know why I never put that together myself.
@futurebird pshaw, for giant ants, that doesn't really matter; presumably only the males, merely the size of a pterosaur, would be flight-capable, the rest don't fly, enabling them to moult many more times and become much bigger.
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@celestialfin @futurebird
A further colleague of mine graduated on some research where they knocked out a growth regulator gene in caterpillars. They grew to the size of rats.
Perhaps you need to start there@MennoWolff @celestialfin @futurebird pics or it didn't happen
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@MennoWolff @celestialfin @futurebird pics or it didn't happen
@zenkat @celestialfin @futurebird
Sorry, he's a former colleague, so kind of hard to contact
Couldn't find it on Google scholar.
He said it happened, I believe him
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@zenkat @celestialfin @futurebird
Sorry, he's a former colleague, so kind of hard to contact
Couldn't find it on Google scholar.
He said it happened, I believe him@MennoWolff @celestialfin @futurebird s'ok ... tbh I just wanted to see pics of rat-sized caterpillars
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@MennoWolff @celestialfin @futurebird s'ok ... tbh I just wanted to see pics of rat-sized caterpillars
@zenkat @MennoWolff @celestialfin Who wouldn’t!
