Australia; New Zealand; International; SA
The lack of giant insects in the world today is probably not due to limits on their ability to absorb and move oxygen around their bodies, according to international and Australian research. The idea that oxygen levels have dictated the maximum body size of insects is part of popular and scientific literature. Around 30 years ago, it was suggested that the structure of an insect's respiratory system, in which oxygen is transported along air-filled tubes into tissues, limits their size, but now, researchers have found that even when insects increased their size by 10,000 times, the size of these air-filled tubes only increased by 1.8 times. They say that even in an extinct dragonfly which had a 70cm wingspan, these tubes only take up around 1% of the space of an insect, and something else may be stopping insects from becoming giants.
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