Creating Giant Insects

Some insects like wasps, ants and bees use "abdominal pumping" to move oxygen through their bodies. This method works well in the sort of oxygenated atmosphere we have today - a stable 21% oxygen. That said, other insects like dragon flies, and some beetles, process oxygen by whats called "autoconvective ventilation", and autoconvective ventilation simply means beating your wings very fast to create air flow through the trachea.

In any case, a lot of interesting experiments - or playful ones - are being conducted on different insects to see how they grow with references to different oxygen levels - and it got me thinking: you could literally create an ancient biosphere, and within that biosphere, raise the oxygen levels to above the planetary norm - to 23%, 24%, and keep going. Within that biosphere, you could fill the environment with ancient trees like cyads which are of lignins that make them very fire-resistant, and so unlikely to be ignited by the higher oxygen levels.

Within this biosphere, you could cultivate an ecosystem of insects (and food, of course) that adapt in the face of higher oxygen levels. Thus, you could carry out a natural experiment that I'm sure many people would find quite cool: create giant insects. With each generation of insect, those which positively adapt to the increased atmospheric concentration of oxygen would be selected, and breeded, generation after generation, until we reach sizes that paleontologists once said crawled, or creeped, on the Earth.

Would it not be cool to see a one meter scorpion? I think it would be cool

We had some bumble bees wanting to move into my woodshed area, I heard the queen coming, it sounded like a B52 coming towards me. It stopped midair and said hello as it went into the shed to check it out. I froze, the bee two feet from my head hovering, the biggest bumble bee I have ever seen. I am glad it decided to go somewhere else, I wouldn't have gone in there all summer. The worker bees were bigger than most queen bees.

So I looked it up and guess what, they grow that big. Just because I had never seen one that big didn't mean they were rare. If you got stung by one of those, you might as well just bury your head in the sand.

There is research done about that

www.wired.com...

Not all insects grow more in oxygen rich environments.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Well they had Scorpions bigger than cars in there distant past but remember they are Arachnid's not insect's, both are of course arthropod's but have different ancestry and evolutionary tree's.

That said imagine the size of the crab leg's you could get at your local sea food deli?.

The largest sea scorpion's were huge, fossil's are only survivors so how large they could grow is another matter, these were aquatic organism's of course.
science.howstuffworks.com...
Then you have the largest land scorpion's which reached over two feet in length but probably also came in substantially larger variety's as once again it is only surviving fossil's telling the tale.
listverse.com...
Personally meter long dragon fly's that flew at over 160kmp are probably more interesting.

Make a dome fill it with those creatures = profit. $50 a visit

Then they can be sold in Japan as the latest food fad.

Gotta eat it alive, before it eats you!

a reply to: Astrocyte

Why don't we just extract dinosaur DNA from mosquitoes stuck in amber and build a theme park on an island powered by a single fallible generator? What could possibly go wrong!

a reply to: SargonThrall

1) That isn't actually possible i.e. the DNA is too degraded to be usable

2) I don't think insects pose the sort of danger that resurrecting dinosaurs would create

3) It would be cool to see a mega-sized insect. Is it wrong to change an existing species as a function of changing oxygen levels? I don't think so. Of course, I may be biased, but insects don't have much of a sentience about them, so I don't think we would be dealing with PETI (people for the ethical treatment of insects), because, that would seem sort of petty.

Is it not ok to entertain ourselves with things like this? A part of me thinks its harmless and would be a spectacle to be appreciated. I'm not calling for a mass transformation of existing insects - just a playful experiment to see if they could be made larger - and if yes, why not?

originally posted by: Astrocyte
a reply to: SargonThrall

1) That isn't actually possible i.e. the DNA is too degraded to be usable

2) I don't think insects pose the sort of danger that resurrecting dinosaurs would create

3) It would be cool to see a mega-sized insect. Is it wrong to change an existing species as a function of changing oxygen levels? I don't think so. Of course, I may be biased, but insects don't have much of a sentience about them, so I don't think we would be dealing with PETI (people for the ethical treatment of insects), because, that would seem sort of petty.

Is it not ok to entertain ourselves with things like this? A part of me thinks its harmless and would be a spectacle to be appreciated. I'm not calling for a mass transformation of existing insects - just a playful experiment to see if they could be made larger - and if yes, why not?

Would they be able to survive outside the biosphere? If so they would pose an enormous threat to the natural habitat outside of the biosphere. That alone would have the government blocking such an experiment.

Personally, I think it would be awesome!

Allow me to go on record as saying "Nope, nope, nope!" Giant insects are not what we need. You want giant bugs, just go to Australia or the rain forest.