>Due to the island's volcanic nature and composition of brittle, quick setting igneous glasses and easily-weathered granite, ceaseless rainfall has carved numerous deep cracks, pits, and narrow valleys running towards the ocean. Rains from higher elevations settle in low spots and depressions, warmed by geothermal heat to body temperature and higher, which then collect nearly all biological matter that has entered a state of decomposition. The result is dark soup of decay, a rich ground for an entire niche of invertebrate life, the giant scavengers.
Tsingsy of Madagascar are the closest we have, I think.
Urban sewers. The creatures don't reach large proportions in comparison to what you mentioned, but the rats and wienerroaches get way larger and thrive way better than they normally would be able to.
I think there's some rule in biology where insects can't get super big because they have exoskeletons, like animals that live out of water can't grow enormous either, hence why the largest animals live in the sea
I thought it was because of the way insects oxygenate though hollow tubes all throughout their body that are extremely inefficient and couldn't cope if they were any bigger than what they can get to now
No, that's as stupid as saying "dinosaurs couldn't survive today due to lower oxygen levels". Humans, just as an example, have extremely inefficient lungs (I think around 70% of the air in your lungs is old) but are still capable of surviving in lower oxygen environments with acclimation and adaption.
Exoskeletons are far more of a concern because the bigger you get, the more you weigh, and the slower you are, and at a certain point vertebrates just run circles around you.
the huge bugs he's talking about are from the permian, not the mesozoic, and dropping oxygen did have an effect on insect size. giant dragonflies would not even be able to stay airborne in today's atmosphere.
>giant dragonflies would not even be able to stay airborne in today's atmosphere
That would imply a massive drop in air pressure, not a drop in oxygen.
what an absoulte fricking moron
The moron is you if you think aerodynamics are dependent on oxygen and not the ability of wings to generate thrust by pushing down.
Do you believe that you swim based on the amount of oxygen dissolved in water as well?
It just might have to do with the joints of the exoskeleton, beyond a certain threshold they just wouldn't be able to support the weight and stress of, say, a mammoth sized scorpion.
They were super big before, it’s likely that we don’t have them now because birds fill the ecological niche
>They were super big before, it’s likely that we don’t have them now because birds fill the ecological niche
Correct. Although oxygen levels do correlate with insect size previous to the emergence of birds, once birds appeared, insect size was significantly depressed relative to what was physiologically possible.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1204026109
Remove birds, and although we wouldn't get carboniferous-sized insects, they'd soon be significantly larger on average than they are today.
Deep sea hydrothermal vents are pretty close, just underwater lmao.
Maybe those caves full of guano that have giant centipedes and spiders
> The resulting guano, produced by the mammals, support a rich and very special ecosystem. The wienerroaches occurs here in huge numbers, together with specialized guano beetles, feeding on decaying matter. They are hunted by huge centipedes, spiders and whipscorpions, teeming over the cave walls like in a nightmare
Nice
imagine the smell
Imagine how hellish undiscovered parasites must be in those places. Most of the creatures in guano caves are already nightmare fuel.
Nah
God I wish. I could see a similar situation occurring in deep sea trenches with marine snow, only the pressure might keep the invertebrates from getting excessively large.
Maybe in a rainforest in one of those huge cenotes, but even then it doesn't seem like there's enough biomatter to make giant bugs.
>only the pressure might keep the invertebrates from getting excessively large.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-sea_gigantism?useskin=vector