Where's your God, now?

[Mitera Nikkou]

An ant that can carry a hundred times its own weight.

Now imagine that ant comparable in size to an adult human. With a colony.

[Haylie]

German ants. Sweet. That looked like a sizable ant, though.

[Mitera Nikkou]

Looks, yeah. But if it's carrying 500mg, then it must only weigh 5mg.

I wonder what I would do if I were that strong. I'd be able to carry 20,000 pounds. XD

HULK SMASH! U_U

[Flannery]

An ant that can carry a hundred times its own weight.

Now imagine that ant comparable in size to an adult human. With a colony.

Yeah...something like that...

[Mitera Nikkou]

Starship troopers, right? I can't believe I remember that movie. ;/

I guess that's close enough. Except they're bigger than humans and don't seem to have the strength to carry one-hundred times their own weight.

[Flannery]

If they have the power to rip a person in half and throw them 15 feet into the air, then I could see it. But according to scientist, finding a ant of that size is impossible.

[Selena Aninikkou]

The insect respiratory system only works at small sizes; in fact, the large tarantulas and scorpions out there are pushing the limit of maximum size (and yes, they aren't insects, but both species happen to use the same respiratory system).

[Mitera Nikkou]

If I understand stuff correctly, I think it depends on the concentration of oxygen in the air, on how the size works with the respiratory system. I don't know if it's physical fact (finding fossils), or theory, but a long time ago there had been higher concentrations of oxygen in the atmosphere, which allowed for the growth of giant bugs. Like mosquitoes the size of your head.

[Kris_Roth]

During the Carboniferous period, insects were really huge due to larger quantities of oxygen. They had giant dragonflies who feasted on small reptiles, Giant amphibians, Proto-Alligators, and Mesotheolae, the giant tarantula. I saw that on the Discovery channel documentary "Before the Dinosaurs", which you can get on DVD on discovery.com, where other fine Discovery channel documentaries are sold.