[TML] Space 1999 (was Orbital mechanics question, trash

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 12/1/07 3:23 PM, Douglas Knapp wrote:

> Have you seen this?
> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/yu-3sf112107.php
> This being true, a hight oxygen world might end up with smart big bugs.
> Also I thought that anthropoids did not use this spiracle thing. Am I
> wrong here?

I said arthropods, not anthropoids.  Totally different.  Arthropods include
insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and some others.  Anthropoids are "near
humans": monkeys, apes, and humans.  Some use spiracles, some gills, some a
thing called a "book lung" (not related to the lung).
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropod>

Note that they don't have a fossil of the creature in that article, only of
it's *claw*.  The size of the rest of the body is pure speculation.  Also it
lived in water, and oxygen transfer is very different there.  I expect it
used some sort of gill (like crabs do), which fossils wouldn't preserve
anyway.



> the largest insect ever to be found with a full
> wingspan of 30 inches and a body length of 18 inches

But look how thin the dragonfly is.  While 18 inches long, it's only a
couple inches wide.  Fairly easy for oxygen to diffuse in over that
distance.

> So I think that in a  hight oxygen planet you could still evolve giant
> intelligent bugs.

Atmospheric oxygen is self-limiting.  Too much and it burns off with
whatever fuel it can find.  :)