[QUOTE=evilweazel;42564127]That's just awesome though because crabs are cool as heck, imagine giant crabs roaming around, it would be great.
But big spiders? fuck off nature.[/QUOTE]
You know crabs are extremely related to bugs right?
[QUOTE=pansarkurt;42563856]Just for fun, here's history's largest arthropod, the sea scorpion.
[IMG]http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/sea-scorpion-1.jpg[/IMG]
(or the largest one we've found evidence of)[/QUOTE]
That's some Catachan Devil shit right there. It would also probably taste like lobster, and therefore we must clone it so it can be made into cheap lobbie products.
[QUOTE=Grimhound;42563434][img]http://i.imgur.com/piIq0QW.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
It sort of baffles me how a crab tat huge can climb onto a vertical surface
The man sized bug looks horrifying yet at the same time delicious with some tartar sauce.
But I'd rather never ever have to go up against a giant bug. The giant writhing mass that is their mandibles, a bunch of other writhing and wild shit along with all those tinky little legs.
Seriously I'd probably shit my pants if that was coming at me. And that ain't used lightly, I think of myself as a badass
[QUOTE=Zezibesh;42563588]gotta love the hamburger tail[/QUOTE]
BTW, you can eat that and it tastes of what the name implies.
[QUOTE=pansarkurt;42563856]Just for fun, here's history's largest arthropod, the sea scorpion.
[IMG]http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/sea-scorpion-1.jpg[/IMG]
(or the largest one we've found evidence of)[/QUOTE]
To add on this, the biggest bear had 3.4 meters.
[IMG]http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/319/cache/biggest-bear-ever-found-diagram_31977_200x150.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=proch;42565410]To add on this, the biggest bear had 3.4 meters.
[IMG]http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/319/cache/biggest-bear-ever-found-diagram_31977_200x150.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
NO
NO
[QUOTE=Hashmere;42563582]Here's an artist's rendition.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/yWK2Bkz.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
I have those!
[QUOTE=Miskav;42563151]OH HELLLLLL NOOOO[/QUOTE]
i can't wait till some mad scientist start doing this shit...
While we're on the topic of giant ancestral animals...
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Gigantopithecus_v_human_v1.svg[/IMG]
[I]Meep.[/I]
Incidentally, does anyone happen to know why most pre-historic creatures tended to be much bigger than their modern-day counterparts? I can't believe it was all due to higher levels of oxygen.
[QUOTE=Jorori;42563874]Oxygen can play a role but it's not the definitive factor of why there are not gigantic insect today:
[url]http://news.ucsc.edu/2012/06/giant-insects.html[/url]
With oxygen levels being like this over time:
[url]http://i.imgur.com/GR2vFt4.jpg[/url]
During the Carboniferous and before, terrestial vertebrate life was scarce, so giant bugs were a common thing. No predational pressure + insane oxygen levels allowed them to be that big.
But as soon as birds appeared (middle Jurassic) you can see a decrease in size of insects. The Paleogene epoch (after the Cretaceous) had high oxygen levels (26% compared with today's 21%) but no giant bugs like Arthropleura: birds now preyed on them and all big ecological roles had been taken by mammals, birds and lizards already.
If we just doubled oxygen levels we wouldn't have giant insects unless we got rid of all birds that keep giving them predational pressure (and also any animal that could prevent them from having, for example, a "big detritus eater" niche, the one Arthropleura had back in the Carboniferous).
Alternate source: [url]http://news.sciencemag.org/2012/06/where-have-hawk-sized-insects-gone[/url][/QUOTE]
But presumably if we got rid of the birds we also wouldn't have giant insects if the oxygen levels weren't high enough, so what the guy was originally saying isn't a myth, it's just not the primary reason they went extinct?
[QUOTE=Jorori;42563250]That's actually a myth, there are no giant insects/arachnids/bugs today because birds exist, among other things unrelated to oxygen levels.[/QUOTE]
If that's true than every species the size of a small fox should be extinct.
[QUOTE=pansarkurt;42563856]Just for fun, here's history's largest arthropod, the sea scorpion.
[IMG]http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/sea-scorpion-1.jpg[/IMG]
(or the largest one we've found evidence of)[/QUOTE]
Where can I catch it, I'm trying to fill my Pokedex?
While we're on the topic of freaky extinct shit, there's this thing
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Opabinia_BW2.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=Jorori;42563250]That's actually a myth, there are no giant insects/arachnids/bugs today because birds exist, among other things unrelated to oxygen levels.[/QUOTE]
[img]http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01080/earth-graphics-200_1080291a.jpg[/img]
You were saying?
if they come back in the future.
we destroy them with lasers.
It's such a shame that our entire biosphere is held up by the annoying little pieces of shit we call insects.
[editline]18th October 2013[/editline]
Wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for natural selection shitting out toxins [B]capable of killing organisms of several million times their own weight.[/B]
[QUOTE=amorax;42566700]While we're on the topic of giant ancestral animals...
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Gigantopithecus_v_human_v1.svg[/IMG]
[I]Meep.[/I]
Incidentally, does anyone happen to know why most pre-historic creatures tended to be much bigger than their modern-day counterparts? I can't believe it was all due to higher levels of oxygen.[/QUOTE]
Nothing comes close to what we have today, the blue whale is the largest animal ever to exist as far as we know.
[editline]edit[/editline]
People exaggerate some of the animals from the past. This is a simple site for comparing things to blue whales, not exactly high level stuff but still really cool...
[url]http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/blue-whale-interactive/[/url]
[QUOTE=amorax;42566700]While we're on the topic of giant ancestral animals...
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Gigantopithecus_v_human_v1.svg[/IMG]
[I]Meep.[/I]
Incidentally, does anyone happen to know why most pre-historic creatures tended to be much bigger than their modern-day counterparts? I can't believe it was all due to higher levels of oxygen.[/QUOTE]
shit was fucking scary back then
Isn't there like 0 evidence of spiders being larger in the past? Largest fossil found only had a 6 inch leg span.
[QUOTE=Shadaez;42571563]Isn't there like 0 evidence of spiders being larger in the past? Largest fossil found only had a 6 inch leg span.[/QUOTE]
Not sure about spiders but
[URL="http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/exhibits/terrestrial_palaeozoic.htm"]http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/exhibits/terrestrial_palaeozoic.htm[/URL]
[QUOTE] Dragonflies are primitive flying insects. Their ancestors first appeared about 300 million years ago and had wingspans of up to 70 cm. [/QUOTE]
Pretty clear most things were much larger, guess people figure its safe to assume.
I would really like to see how a large arthropod move. All the small insects move jittery because they're so small and light.
It's hard to imagine an arthropod moving with heavy strides and swings.
Taking into account atmospheric statistics such as oxygen, C02, and living conditions, survivability, and evolution in general I'd say due to the inherent duality(?) of any natural process (see: [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory"]chaos theory[/URL], [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy"]entropy[/URL]) a specie changing size drastically would be an arbitrary function of evolution to combat the time/place/environment/natural predator and not really turning back, especially taking into account Ice Ages etc.
You may outmatch other species due to size but that also requires far more resources to live so minimizing/optimizing (akin our technological logic) could be a preferred route?
Sorry for kind of vaguely name dropping theories to make up for my inability to explain things properly myself, hopefully somebody will get what I mean, hopefully someone who knows better will tell us.
[QUOTE=amorax;42566700]While we're on the topic of giant ancestral animals...
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Gigantopithecus_v_human_v1.svg[/IMG]
[I]Meep.[/I]
Incidentally, does anyone happen to know why most pre-historic creatures tended to be much bigger than their modern-day counterparts? I can't believe it was all due to higher levels of oxygen.[/QUOTE]
Pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that ancient times were like a biological wild west and there was enough oxygen and crazy going around to support large life forms. Whatever caused the dinosaurs to go extinct (meteor?) basically killed off giant stuff in general and left the small animals surviving (aka the mammals).
As such small mammals become the dominant biological force and I'd argue we are largely able to exist today because of the fact that after a certain point being big and dumb became an evolutionary liability
[QUOTE=ZakkShock;42563167]Weren't spiders like the size of cars a few hundred million years ago?[/QUOTE]
Nah, insects and related animals were significantly bigger at times but not as extreme. Probably I think the biggest ones were roughly double the size of our biggest ones.
[quote]
Incidentally, does anyone happen to know why most pre-historic creatures tended to be much bigger than their modern-day counterparts? I can't believe it was all due to higher levels of oxygen.[/quote]
A lot weren't, but big creatures are popular to show, so you have the illusion that there was nothing small around.
[QUOTE=RayvenQ;42570621][img]nope[/img]
You were saying?[/QUOTE]
the following things happened:
1. the nope-o-meters broke.
2. the nope-o-meter-o-meters, which measure how many nope-o-meters broke, broke.
3. the nope-o-meter-o-meter-o-meters broke.
continue to 9.
it stops at nine because nobody thought something this nopeful could exist.
----
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I remember reading somewhere that we discovered a new species of spider in the Amazon whose legs could extend out to the size of a large hubcap.
the Cambrian Period was fucking weird.
[IMG]http://ufrr.br/lapa/images/Menu_Geologia/Figura%2031.jpg[/IMG]
Look at this thing:
[IMG]http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/images/pikaia_big.jpg[/IMG]
Scientists cant even tell the front from the rear.
If life on Earth could get this goddamn strange imagine life on other planets.
[QUOTE=slayer64;42568735]While we're on the topic of freaky extinct shit, there's this thing
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Opabinia_BW2.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
holy shit, that nose looks straight out of spore
what if their were giant jelly fish the size of houses that we never knew about, because no fossil was left behind.
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