this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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This one's for JusticeforPorygon!

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

A lion sized ant would asphyxiate rather quickly. Breathing through spiracles/tracheae doesn't scale well.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And the lions would quickly get too cold by having way too much surface area.

Scientific accuracy is no fun for shrinking and growing things.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The smallest mammal (Etruscan shrew) is about the same size as the largest ant (Driver ant Queen). You probably need to speed up the tiny-lion metabolism, but in general the mammal body plan can work around that size.

On the other hand, to scale up insects to the size of a lion, you would need to completly redesign the respiratory at least and the entire exoskeleton construct will also be pushed to it's structural limits.

Downscaling mammals is much more realistic then upscaling arthropods.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But there were giant ants during the Eocene

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanomyrma

For the sake of argument, let's assume a hyper-rich oxygen environment.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Yeah well... "giant" ants still aren't lion sized. Or even cat size. Perhaps "oh wow that's a big ant" big, but not actually that... big.

The fossils indicate that the males grew up to 3 centimetres (1.2 in) and the queens grew to 7 centimetres (2.8 in). It had a wingspan of about 16 centimetres (6.3 in).[7][8]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

But quickly enough to prevent it from biting you in half?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

1k ant-sized lions, easy. just run over them while high-stepping. how is this a question?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah. I didn't really balance it, I just mashed the recent lions vs ants/bees/blobfish(?) posts with the classic AMA question from Reddit.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fight? I'm sure you meant "keep as a pet". And obviously the microlions. I'd feed them ground beef and try to maintain a breeding population, eventually sell them as pets.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Yeah. This is the only correct answer. I just wanted to keep with the Lion Fighting theme that popped up last night.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I've played "it came from the desert". I'll take the tiny lions any day.

Just toss a bucket of water at them or adopt them and keep them in a terrarium.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Could an ant sized lion actually hurt you? Their teeth are built to wrap around and grip thinner pieces of the body. If they are shrunk down, I don't know how efficiently they could work their way through skin. It'd be like trying to bite a wall or something.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Don't know about that, but think how strong ants arenin proportion to their weight. If that carried through, it could probably just batter you with its legs/head.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ant size lions are too small. Can I have 50 tennis ball sized lions instead, please? (And utter chaos would ensue…)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

It's be a racket.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I would pat a cat-sized plush antlion instead.