Questions tagged [insects]
For questions focused on insects and other, similar forms of life (such as spiders).
106 questions
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Would my reduction in these specific insect populations have a severe negative impact on Earth's ecosystem?
Setting is modern Earth. Earth has attracted the gaze of a cosmic horror. In around 5 years, the entity would fully descend on Earth.
One of the effects of his gaze is the sudden mass deaths of ...
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Can a spider person i.e. Arachne, make themselves undetectable to smell?
So I am writing a story with a spider/human hybrid creature living in the attic. There is a dog, but it was questioned why the dog hadn't smelled the creature if the creature had been there for a ...
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Could civilised hive insects build galls in living humans? [closed]
The insects form an interspecific alliance of all sufficiently advanced eusocial insects within Eastern Europe. They have access to modern day science, medicine, and philosophy
Using their knowledge ...
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Insect like muscles for a human skeleton that is alive, would it be able to move in a "snappy" capatult way?
Many insects overcome the issue of limited space for muscle growth by developing "bow" muscle-tendon systems. In this system, a muscle contracts against a lock, building up energy, and then ...
user107612
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Features of a technological civilization that would fail to notice another intelligent species on their planet?
"Peopling" is such a funny word.
I'm currently writing about the "anting" of the great landmasses of Myrmecos some 180,000 years ago. There are many species of "ant people&...
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A planet *without vertebrates. (*mostly, restrictions apply)
I'm thinking about the evolutionary history of life on a world very similar to earth in many ways, carbon based life, life began in the seas, creatures like cephalopods, and arthropods, evolve.
But, ...
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The Planet of the Ants: Giant Ant Physiology
The insects of the plant are people-sized, highly intelligent, with a diverse urban culture that brings many species of ant, and inquiline together. Our narrator is a human exchange professor at one ...
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How hard would it be for a cockroach to massacre over a dozen humans at around the same scale 'barehanded'?
I know ANOTHER weird cockroach question, but bare with me.
I have this very W.I.P story about an non-governmental organization that wants to send out people to make peaceful first contact(not ...
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How to stop ants from learning philosophy and taking over Belarus
Something magic happened in the 1970's somewhere in Eastern Europe, causing people to develop psychic powers. These powers allowed ants in Belarus (and a large swathe of Eurasia) to learn human ...
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How deadly would a singe mutant cockroach be in modern day Florida?
Ok, so this is a modified question from yesterday to hopefully meet WB.SE's rules about not being too plot- or opinion-based.
I had an idea about a freak incident in Florida where a cockroach sprayed ...
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How high would the bodycount of a 6 foot tall mutant killer cockroach be in modern times before it is taken out by military/police/armed citizen(s)? [closed]
Ok, so another weird cockroach related question from me.
Anyway, I had an idea about a freak incident in Florida where a cockroach sprayed with (probably Raid)insecticide inadvertently getting into a ...
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How feasible would it be if cockroaches no bigger than an inch (2.5 centimetres) took fall damage from around 6-7 feet in the air or less?
Ok, so I have an unfinished/W.I.P world (may turn it into story) about a sapient civilization of cockroaches called Roachins that are pretty much German Cockroachs, but most/many can fly and can stand ...
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Could a paleopteran without a complete exoskeleton fly?
Unlike most insects, paleopterans have wing muscles that connect directly with the wing. Could this musculature be used to let a soft, maggot-like insect fly?
The insect is relatively large (around ...
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How can intelligent insects defend themselves from the cold?
The world is an icy wasteland, populated only with dark fungi burrowing through the irradiated earth. The last plant life in this desert is cultivated in great cities of ants and honeybees. A few ...
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How to Counter Mosquito-Borne Diseases in a Premodern World
In a setting I am working on there is a civilization based in a tropical floodplain that’s dependent on paddy field agriculture to maintain its population. Problem is that all the standing water and ...
user71781
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Can there be giant insects without a O2 rise?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=95&v=tI6F57s78cI&feature=emb_logo-this video says that it was recently discovered there was a 2-meter long MILLIPEDE living in the Carboniferous ...
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What Would Be the Most Practical Way for a Pre-industrial Civilization to Communicate With a Sentient Race of Bees?
I am currently writing a story about the very unique relationship between a sentient race of bees and humanity. Humans, through bartering and trade, have grown to have a close relationship with these ...
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Could an insect cast in amber stay intact in space?
I have a mosquito in my story who is suspended in amber. The chunk of amber it is encased in eventually finds itself drifting through deep space without any sort of human-sourced protection (long ...
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Why are there so many mosquitoes in the Arctic?
TL-DR: How to create a world with ecology similar to ours, that doesn't have such abominable plagues of mosquitoes in its Arctic summer?
It is tempting to think of mosquitoes as a pest of the tropics, ...
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How far across the sea can mosquitoes disperse?
One of the more interesting facts about the biogeography of Hawaii is that mosquitoes were not always present; they only arrived in the early nineteenth century, as stowaways aboard oceangoing ships. ...
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A symbiotic bark beetle: how does it work?
In our world bark beetles can bring serious damages to forests which they infest, by killing the tree which they attack when they feed and breed between the bark and the wood of their host.
I am ...
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How to attack with War Lice?
You are the commander of the China Special Forces and Reconnaissance Company of the 13th United Nations Force Intervention Brigade, based at Minot Air Force Base. Your location in Dakota is part of ...
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Could a human be captured in a web?
Could an arthropod or similar creature make a web, using silk and other arthropodal secretions, that is large, strong, sticky enough to entrap a human that walks into it? The creature would be bound ...
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Bluejumpers - could insects evolve to detect bluetooth?
Evolved from fleas, 'bluejumpers' can detect frequenties around 2.4 GHz, which makes them sensitive to bluetooth devices. A neat trick to find hairy victims that are using smart wearables. Their sense ...
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How do you farm flies?
Fly meat is likely a more efficient source of protein than traditional livestock, such as cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, and the like, in that:
Flies can feed on essentially any biomatter, including ...
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What would a eusocial species of lepidopterans look like?
I am writing a science-fiction story that takes place some million years in a future Earth. There is a species of lepidopterans that evolved to become eusocial. They are my gnomes. My species is a ...
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Would Anthropomorphic Bugs and Crustaceans Need Armor?
In my book series, many of the sentient races that exist are anthropomorphized versions of real animals. This has been mostly problem-free with vertebrates, but I have a question regarding ...
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Parasitoid wasp targeting humans: which tissue would they target?
Parasitoid wasps are kind of a nightmarish bug: they lay eggs in their target, usually a caterpillar; the eggs hatch and the larvae grow inside the body of the target, feeding on non essential tissue ...
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Would larger silkworms make silk cheaper?
Let's say that there is a large silkworm species, their body being about 70cm (about 2.3ft) in length. Other than their abnormal size, they are just regular silkworms (except for needing much food, of ...
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Feasibility of endochitin and its use in making bugs bigger
To summarize, endochitin would be chitin that an insect uses for internal reinforcement as beams or some sort of network of structures that would grow along with their chitin exoskeleton. This would ...
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Can you make felt from fluffy bees?
The bees of my world have a thick coating of fluff. A portion of the fluff is made up of branched fibres, roughly resembling a spiny/prickly plant-shoot. Could these fibres, if they were the only ones ...
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What issues could multiple lanes of travel in the air pose in a city?
In the world I am working on, society is made up of multiple species of equally intelligent/sapient humanoid insects that operate extremely similar to humans. Cities contain many different species of ...
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What environmental pressures would drive arthropods to evolve a more "efficient" circulatory and respiratory system?
I already made two different questions about similar things, How could an efficient respiratory system evolve for giant arthropods? and How could an efficient circulatory and cardiovascular system ...
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insect square cube law
Removing respiratory problems due to primitive lungs, is there any reason why giant insects can't exist? after all we have giraffes which are enormous but have incredibly skinny legs, quetzalcoatls ...
user88550
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How arthropods could evolve a placoderm-like skeleton (semi-exoskeleton)?
I recently made this question about the viability of a placoderm-like skeleton to permit arthropods grow till giantsizes, getting a mechanism which I decided to call "semi-exoskeleton" to ...
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Is placoderm-like armor (semi-exoskeleton) viable for giant arthropods?
I thought this model could possibly work as a possible way to get a functional system for giant arthropods, but I realized with problems when I was writing an answer to this question Are '...
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How arthropods could evolve an endoskeleton?
Due to similar answers in the multiple questions I have asked about giant arthropods, seems like the presence of an exoskeleton is a bigger limitation for giant arthropods than their cardiovascular or ...
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How could an efficient circulatory and cardiovascular system evolve for giant arthropods?
This question will be highly related with this other How could an efficient respiratory system evolve for giant arthropods?, because both systems do an important and combined contribution to ...
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How would warm-blooded insects work?
Like would that even be possible in any way, could it happen and why or why not?
Would the environment also suffer because of the warm-blooded insect(s)?
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How to disguise insect meat?
The rot-weevil is a 10cm long flightless beetle (though not truly a weevil). It eats a wide variety of food, most of which is obtained from civilised settlements. If people wished to trap and sell ...
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Why do I still want insect screens?
I have magical insect repellent that prevents nuisance1,2 insects from landing on me, biting/stinging me, or congregating within, say, 1m of my face.
Would I still want to employ insect screening on ...
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How would this Eusocial species deal with large Dragons?
My world has Eusocial Wyverns that live in groups of a thousand or so. They are about the size of rats. They have several castes, similar to ants or naked mole rats. All members of the same cast are ...
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How will these mammal-bugs retain their bug-like features?
As a sequel to my first question, I have decided to ask another! Let's say, that these bugs have evolved to look completely like a mammal. Fur, skin, eyes, etc. What about their internal biology could ...
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How fast can a cockroach scaled up to 1:72 scale(72 times bigger) run and move barring the square-cube law? [closed]
I had a passing idea for a world where giant cockroaches attack a city and was wondering how fast can they run at this scale. I know that even normal-sized cockroaches are fast, so must be even more ...
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Which animals would Ents (tree men) want to cull? [closed]
Imagine you were an ent, a tree person, and the day is going just fine, until.... TERMITES!!
You panic, stumbling through the glen as you try to scratch the annoying, horrifying and perhaps even ...
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How quickly can a swarm of insects eat 1kg of meat? [closed]
In my story a swarm of insects (ants, beetles, etc) can be controlled and directed to devour a carcass.
Assuming there are enough insects to actually consume that much flesh, how long would it take ...
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can Elf be in family with Fairies and Angels?(updated)
need a bit help with an Elf species I am making.
I am thinking about making them family with fairies who is in my world; some type of dragonfly.
of course, I have no idea this is possible.
My Elf ...
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How can I maintain realism while having giant insects?
In my world, there was a nuclear apocalypse, and the resulting radiation, along with biochemical pathogens, lead to a dramatic increase in mutation and evolution.
Now, originally in my world I wanted ...
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Could a bug sting induce a human body to explode?
The setup is similar to a funny horror movie or like Troma movies. Deaths only happen to insignificant, unnamed characters.
However, I would like to have some plausible science back-up (maybe slightly ...
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Where would the best cuts of meat be on a giant insect?
Let's say one had a giant insect the size of a sheep or a cow that some sapient species was raising as meat livestock. These animals would have to be butchered to be eaten and cannot simply be eaten ...
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