Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a giant bug!
If you thought your common cockroach was on the large side, rewind a few million years – 300 to be exact – and you would have been horrified at the size of the creepy crawlies under your sink – in fact, they probably wouldn’t have fit under your sink!
A higher concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere created a breed of bug that tipped the scales at more than 1000 times the size of today’s insects. It’s believed that dragonflies were the size of hawks, and flies were as large as lobsters! Talk about a scene from an olden-day horror movie!
Back then, instead of insecticide sprays and baits, pest control would have to involve large nets and cages!
The basis of “gigantism” is thought to lie in the insect’s respiratory system. In basic terms, insects deliver oxygen through a maze of tracheal tubes (which function like lungs) instead of via cells like humans. As oxygen levels increased, only the longer tracheal tubes worked, allowing large insects to evolve.
Luckily, something in the air changed, and insects started to reduce in size to become the teeny tiny pests they are today.
So, is there a chance giant bugs will ever make a comeback? Probably not. Due to decreasing oxygen levels and increasing CO2 levels, most scientists think insects won’t grow much bigger than they are now.
While horror movie fans may be disappointed by this prediction, exterminators can breathe a sigh of relief that they won’t have to change their pest control strategy any time soon – well, we hope so anyway!