Has anyone ever thought about this? What if bugs/insects/arachnids/etc were reveresed with mammels..

I've been thinking recently, with insects and bugs like bees who build hives, like ants who build ant hills where they live and tunnel in a social community and termites who build giant mounds, and spiders who weave beautiful webs to catch their prey. Imagine if these creatures were just as big as the typical mammal, say the size of a dog. Would an ant, the size of a dog, with other ants create an ant hill the size of a small city? A town? Now, we humans are the only civilization OR species known to alter their environment for themselves to benefit, correct?

You don't see cats building houses to live in. You don't see dogs making a hive. You don't see a bear making a web. I know these examples are all out of whack, but what I'm saying here is has anyone thought before that it's kind of odd that these so small creatures are kind of like us, in the sense of making objects to live and store things in? I mean, imagine if they were just bigger, our size, would their creations rival the size of our cities and towns and whatnot?

It's just weird to me, I've been thinking about this lately. Sometimes I imagine if spiders were just the size of a house cat, would their webbings be pretty much the size of an entire house? Would a bee hive or termite mound pretty much be a city building, or even a skyscraper? Would an anthill be pretty much the size of a town? Think about it and post here with your gatherings, thanks!

[edit on 4-9-2009 by Deus Ex Machina 42]

Originally posted by Deus Ex Machina 42
Now, we humans are the only civilization OR species known to alter their environment for themselves to benefit, correct?
[edit on 4-9-2009 by Deus Ex Machina 42]

What about a beaver?

Indeed, you are right, but I meant on a much larger scale like we as humans do. Would insects/bugs/arachnids be able to compare with our cities/etc if they were our size?

No they would not. The bigger a creature is the more energy it needs to expend to move itself around. Bugs are so hardcore because of their small mass. That and their hard exoskeletons protect them a lot more than our fleshy meat on the outside. They also don't have a regular blood system or oxygen system like we do, they breathe through a series of holes in their skin, which connect to every cell in the body (instead of having o2 move through blood to cells). Since oxygen travels faster in air than water they are extremely efficient with oxygen usage.

The bigger the creature the less likely it will have the same characteristics as when it was small. As the size increase its surface area increases in proportion to the square of length and its weight increase with the cube of length.

Now this is coming straight out of my book "Bugs in the System"

Statements like "A grasshopper as large as a man could leap across a football field in a single jump" or "if a man were as strong as an ant, he could pull two boxcars without sweating."
The problem with all of these statements is that they don't take into account the surface area/volume ratio. ... if a grasshopper were as big as a man, it could jump probably only about as far as a man can jump, since its muscles would have to move a much greater bulk or volume than a grasshopper is accustomed to moving.

So basically if they were big like us, they would eat a crap load, and probably ravage everything, and not be able to move as many things as they could while being small. An ant can pick up a large leaf for instance, it very well could weigh a lot more than an ant, but if it was our size it would not be able to do the same thing.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/10767a1b2297.jpeg[/atsimg]

What about birds that build nests?

..... i dont think you thought very long about this.

and yes the increse of size would require larger dwellings..... but that wouldnt happen unless they had gained other evolutionary traits to support planet domination.




[edit on 5-9-2009 by Wertdagf]

Originally posted by Wertdagf
What about birds that build nests?

..... i dont think you thought very long about this.

and yes the increse of size would require larger dwellings..... but that wouldnt happen unless they had gained other evolutionary traits to support planet domination.




[edit on 5-9-2009 by Wertdagf]

It's really not the same, as I said. Birds are far, far bigger then bugs and ants and so on. I mean jesus, they eat bugs and insects, so uh yeah, point proven. Beavers, birds and so on are all extremely giant compared to them.

Originally posted by LOLZebra
No they would not. The bigger a creature is the more energy it needs to expend to move itself around. Bugs are so hardcore because of their small mass. That and their hard exoskeletons protect them a lot more than our fleshy meat on the outside. They also don't have a regular blood system or oxygen system like we do, they breathe through a series of holes in their skin, which connect to every cell in the body (instead of having o2 move through blood to cells). Since oxygen travels faster in air than water they are extremely efficient with oxygen usage.

The bigger the creature the less likely it will have the same characteristics as when it was small. As the size increase its surface area increases in proportion to the square of length and its weight increase with the cube of length.

Now this is coming straight out of my book "Bugs in the System"

Statements like "A grasshopper as large as a man could leap across a football field in a single jump" or "if a man were as strong as an ant, he could pull two boxcars without sweating."
The problem with all of these statements is that they don't take into account the surface area/volume ratio. ... if a grasshopper were as big as a man, it could jump probably only about as far as a man can jump, since its muscles would have to move a much greater bulk or volume than a grasshopper is accustomed to moving.

So basically if they were big like us, they would eat a crap load, and probably ravage everything, and not be able to move as many things as they could while being small. An ant can pick up a large leaf for instance, it very well could weigh a lot more than an ant, but if it was our size it would not be able to do the same thing.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/10767a1b2297.jpeg[/atsimg]

Then why the hell can we do it? Does that make sense? Some of our cities are so big with so many houses, apartments, stores, businesses, skyscrapers and so on in them they seem half impossible to imagine, let alone actually build into a reality.

I dunno, I don't think you all are thinking about it the way I intended this topic to be thought about...

It's kind of hard to explain really, and I guess I'm partially at fault due to not wording something here or there correctly, but when I wake up maybe I'll have a better time at doing so. Thanks for the intelligent post though, I enjoyed reading.

reply to post by LOLZebra


listen to this guy

Thats a pretty trippy idea , I like it
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/85f6ace84ba7.jpg[/atsimg]
termites already build some amazing things , its kinda fun to imagine that on an even bigger scale though

In a way insects Are bigger than mammals - If you were to weigh all the insects in the world their mass would far exceed that of all the mammals. Insects are everywhere and have survived without much mutation for millions of years, I would call that success.

i think if everything was scaled up, such as a spider to our size, i think there webs might stretch between sky scrapers.