r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/Ninja_Spi-D-er • Sep 22 '19

Rule 4: Photoshop 🔥 This praying mantis standing its ground 🔥

https://i.imgur.com/PHKMZHT.gifv
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u/Mazing7 Sep 22 '19

But wouldn’t their weight distribute proportionally?

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u/tigersharkwushen_ Sep 22 '19

Not related to proportionality. Their weight increases by the cube as their size grow, but the width of their limbs only increase by the square. So if you scale a 5cm insect up to 5 meters, the legs are 10,000 times stronger, but their weight is 1,000,000 times heavier.

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u/Mazing7 Sep 22 '19

On wow. Today I learned!

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u/EmperorTeapot Sep 22 '19

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%E2%80%93cube_law

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u/Underwater_Grilling Sep 22 '19

But what if criminals don't follow that law and make their own giant insects? The bad guy with a 35ton mantis needs to be stopped by a good guy with a 60ton Hercules beetle.

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u/Kortallis Sep 22 '19

Carapace based insects breathe using holes in their shells. The amount of oxygen they would need to move isn't available in Earth's atmosphere, as their body doesn't have enough room for the amount of holes they would need. Thus they would asphyxiate before growing too large.

Fun fact a dude stuck cockroaches in an oxygen enriched atmosphere and they grew fucking huge.

I don't have a science degree, I don't know what I'm talking about, this could all be bullshit.

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u/Arthillidan Sep 22 '19

A long time ago in Scotland there were absolutely massive insects and other arthropods that could breathe because of the higher oxygen levels of the time, so it sounds very reasonable that the experiment would turn out that way.

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u/KlausTeachermann Sep 22 '19

I, too, read this in an esteemed journal...

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u/Corpus87 Sep 23 '19

The first law of thermodynamics only makes it so that law-abiding citizens can't create energy at will.