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.
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]
The used air which their cells “”“exhale”“” won’t permeate out of their body quickly enough, and where it does, it only mixes with fresh air that has far too little oxygen concentration for it to supply their cells via permeation.
And well, when they suffocate, they don’t snap for air (because obviously no lungs / circulatory system), but rather their movement slows down, as the lack of oxygen hinders chemical reactions from happening.
One would need to simulate this to actually determine what would happen, but in my head, it starts running up to you and as it opens its mandibles, it starts slowing down so much that it just won’t have much force when actually biting you.
A lion sized ant would asphyxiate rather quickly. Breathing through spiracles/tracheae doesn’t scale well.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But quickly enough to prevent it from biting you in half?
Quite possibly, yeah.
The used air which their cells “”“exhale”“” won’t permeate out of their body quickly enough, and where it does, it only mixes with fresh air that has far too little oxygen concentration for it to supply their cells via permeation.
And well, when they suffocate, they don’t snap for air (because obviously no lungs / circulatory system), but rather their movement slows down, as the lack of oxygen hinders chemical reactions from happening.
One would need to simulate this to actually determine what would happen, but in my head, it starts running up to you and as it opens its mandibles, it starts slowing down so much that it just won’t have much force when actually biting you.