Why are truly giant insects improbable

Does the idea of an eight-foot scorpion roaming the earth in search of prey terrify you? Well, Jaekelopterus rhenaniae was a sea scorpion. It was also a bit of a cannibal. This sinister scorpion would have been at the top of the underwater food chain during its time.

Additionally, researchers have speculated that some primitive fish adapted the to threat of Jaekelopterus rhenaniae by growing bony armor.

That would be Anomalocaris canadensis. This ancient relative to arthropods lived back in the Cambrian period — a time about million years ago that was known for some major evolutionary breakthroughs. Anomalocaris canadensis was a large-eyed predator with special limbs near the tip of its nose.

It used these limbs to snag prey, which it then devoured with rings of sharp teeth. Bed bugs are travelers. Before moving into your mattress or settling down in your nightstand, they may have lived in a hotel, office, school or other place where people gather.

Because bed bugs can attach themselves to clothes, furniture, luggage and even your pets, they can also hitch a ride in your car, rental vehicle, taxi or rideshare. This gives them easy access to anything you transport with you and a free ride to everywhere you go, including your home. Robin Lloyd was a senior editor at Space.

She holds a B. She is currently a freelance science writer based in New York City and a contributing editor at Scientific American. Live Science. The content is provided for information purposes only.

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Insects and the rest of arthropods are covered by a more o less hardened exoskeleton known as cuticle , which is periodically replaced by molting processes or ecdysis. So, if an ant grow to be as big as an elephant, the weight of its cuticle would be out of proportion. In order to hold the huge weight of its cuticle, its legs must be probably as large as the ones of an elephant or even bigger!

Fig 2 and 3. So, if its body grows, their legs must be larger to hold the entire weight of its body each body part has an specific growth rate: allometry. It would be the same with wings: if a dragonfly became as big as a golden eagle, it must have wings of several meters. For this reason, the body will optimize its global growth in order to make the whole organism to work correctly. Thus, all the things explained above will prevent an ant to be as big as an elephant.

Although it seems illogical, giant arthropods would be probably more vulnerable against predators; specially, during molt. After molting their cuticle, arthropods go through a low activity period until they cuticle is totally hardened.