Was there ever a time when GIANT insects were a reality?

I was watching the movie King Kong the other day and it made me very curious.

There is the whole scene where the crew travels to Skull Island to search for the giant ape, but ends up in a remote rainforest inhabited by these nasty looking giant insects of all variety....see partial video clip below






Now I realize this is only a movie full of Hollywood makeup and CGI effects, but I have to stop and wonder. Was there ever a time, perhaps during the pre-historic age of the dinosaurs or even earlier...where giant flying and land insects roamed the Earth?

Im no scientist by any means (which is why I am asking for educated opinion here) but it would seem that if the smaller reptiles of today all evolved or were descended from dinosaurs and other reptiles that were enormous, the tiger is a descendant of the massive Sabre Tooth cats, the Ox and elephants etc are descendants of the giant mammoths and related beasts......wouldn't natural evolution dictate that at some point the distant cousin to the beetle, the cockroach and the mosquito must have inhabited the Earth...and were likely much larger?

Think of it....giant ants the size of dogs.....moths the size of a house. Could it have happened?


How likely is it that there were once bugs the size of compact cars crawling along the landscape?.....Pretty creepy but fascinating to consider.

If I recall right the late Paleozoic era.

Discovery

It was due to the high levels of oxygen in the air back then.

Right. They were very large and insect gigantism needs a great amount of oxygen. However, king kong movie sized bugs probably never existed. Just large insects relative to their current size.

reply to post by Frogs




Wow thanks for the link....that is just fascinating stuff. So at one point in time the entire Earth was inhabited exclusively by gigantic insects....according to the link this was before the age of the dinosaurs came to be.


Imagine what that lansdcape would have looked like back then, to see a dragonfly with a 3' wing span buzzing by. I assume they survived off of various plant polinations, maybe even other smaller insects? What would they have eaten?

Also...does this mean that a giant spider or similar arachnid could have been possible as well? I wonder why they fail to cover this type of thing in the average Biology class?

Also, from what I understand, exoskeletons can not support the same amount of weight an endoskeleton can. They have a limit.

[edit on 12/4/2008 by prototism]

What are you thinking? Is this part of a conspiracy, because I would love to hear it. And one more question you might ask is, were these ancient creatures more intelligent than modern creatures of the same kind?

In the late Carboniferous very large insects were real. One of the most popular seems to be a dragonfly with a 70cm wingspan.

Oxygen is a favorite culprit but I've read that there is some debate about that- apparently they think these insects might have been able to "inhale" as it were, which would make them viable in lower oxygen atmospheres than if they just had to absorb oxygen passively.

I always thought insect were limited in size do to having no lungs and intaking air through spiracles at the side of their bodies. Maybe if Oxygen was more concentrated they could grow to a larger size, i remember reading about gerbils the size of elephants, personally a spider the size of a coin gives me the heebeegeebees if i seen a spider the size of a dog id need more oxygen.

Big tarantulas have book lungs- a rudimentary type of localized oxygen transfer across a series of membranes i believe, these are the bird eating types i think...
so oxygen limits size more than the exoskeleton it seems..

i did a quick look at; www.msnbc.msn.com...

and read about a 8 1/2 foot big, sea scorpion...
most of these giant insectts, bugs, etc lived from 330 million years ago to 400 mya.

which bring up the question, a sea scorpion does not require air breathing functions as does dragon flies, and other bugs etc.
So... the oxygen mix in the atmosphere would not have caused their gigantism as they were aquatic specimens with quite different breathing processes.

Or? could the oceans have also had a 35% oxygen saturation like the atmosphere did?
the 'rich air' theory does not sound precise to my thinking


thanks

heres a link that may help yall.

Giant bugs thrived in oxygen-rich times - www.abc.net.au...

actually yes there was a time and most of those in the scientific community agree. During earth's earlier years there was plenty of more oxygen in the atmosphere to support giants insects.

Insects don't have a highly evolved cellular system to justify a respiratory system, so they "breathe" through their skin.

Here is a link to what i'm talkin about

news.nationalgeographic.com...

Go to the middle of the arizona dessert. Check out the size of the bugs there. Cockroaches that sound like helicopters. And 5x the normal size.

Yes, giant bugs have existed.

Wouldn't it make sense that the more oxygen available to the brain the more growth it will induce. Since when your brain is deprived of oxygen the cells die would it not also make sense in the reverse? If this is true than maybe these bugs were not only bigger, but also smarter than today's bugs which some of them are pretty smart for bugs.

Originally posted by St Udio
i did a quick look at; www.msnbc.msn.com...

and read about a 8 1/2 foot big, sea scorpion...
most of these giant insectts, bugs, etc lived from 330 million years ago to 400 mya.

which bring up the question, a sea scorpion does not require air breathing functions as does dragon flies, and other bugs etc.
So... the oxygen mix in the atmosphere would not have caused their gigantism as they were aquatic specimens with quite different breathing processes.

Or? could the oceans have also had a 35% oxygen saturation like the atmosphere did?
the 'rich air' theory does not sound precise to my thinking


thanks

Best reply for me!

Good point you make, about the oxygen levels in the ocean.

If someone can help here.....it would be a great help.

I think a lot of scientists are starting to realize that the oxygen rich environment syndrome may have been a contributer, but the REAL culprit for the giantism was the fact that the light coming from the sun was more red-shifted than it is now.

There's a lot of experimentation being done now to prove it, and so far the results are working out precisely as they predicted. Red shifted light seems to be a big factor in the extra large growth capacity for the creatures in the early eras on earth.


interesting stuff, either way. it explains why the dinos, plants, insects, etc, all were of quite large size, AND would also go far to explain why we see now animals and plants which were once the large scale, but are now VERY small compared to their fossil versions.

That giant dragonfly would be one example. Its ancestor would have been large due to the red shifted light, and is now much smaller now that we're into more yellow than red.

Do a google on Red Shifted Giantism and you'll see some interesting stuff relating to it



Edit to add : I was thnking if it is true, that could have some pretty cool implications for future food growth.. imagine using red shifted light to aid in getting larger sized veggies and fruits to help feed more people.. or breed cows of larger size, etc, to get more meat from them than normal. Neat to think

[edit on 6-12-2008 by Jomina]

Originally posted by TheOmen

Originally posted by St Udio
i did a quick look at; www.msnbc.msn.com...

and read about a 8 1/2 foot big, sea scorpion...
most of these giant insectts, bugs, etc lived from 330 million years ago to 400 mya.

which bring up the question, a sea scorpion does not require air breathing functions as does dragon flies, and other bugs etc.
So... the oxygen mix in the atmosphere would not have caused their gigantism as they were aquatic specimens with quite different breathing processes.

Or? could the oceans have also had a 35% oxygen saturation like the atmosphere did?
the 'rich air' theory does not sound precise to my thinking


thanks

Best reply for me!

Good point you make, about the oxygen levels in the ocean.

If someone can help here.....it would be a great help.

If the oxygen levels in the atmosphere are greater, they're going to have a higher concentration in the ocean as well. That helps.

Also, oceans simply have more resources than land based ecosystems. Besides the peak of the reign of the Dinosaurs, all through out Earth's history, the largest species have been marine based. More resources=more food=ecosystems that can support larger animals.

erm....as for the giant sea scorpion, might be mistaken but think theyr a crustacean rather than an insect (so both arthropods still) meaning different constraints on their size and presumably respiration may exist---so could be completely seperate factors to the oxygen concentration. i dont think there are any actual insects in the sea..

The carboniferous era had Meganeura, the giant dragonfly. And also a six-foot millepede, but I don't know the species name.

do you know the names of all of these insects that were in the movie?i'm not just talking just about the spider pit scene i'm talking about every other scene.icluding the lake monster scene i mean it's the least you can do