Dogs and ants belong to the same kingdom Animalia, but they significantly differ in size, behavior, and lifestyle.
What If Ants Were The Same Size of Dogs? If ants were the same size as dogs, there would be a food shortage, overpopulation of bigger insects, or a high infestation rate. They will have more deadly bites or stings, reduced weight-lifting abilities, and increased risk of death after falling. They can die due to suffocation, need more space to build mounds, and will be difficult to remove.
The size of ants relates to their behavior, and it can affect if their body length increases or become equal to dogs. As a result, they will behave differently and need more space to survive.
Shortage of food
Most commonly, ants eat food multiple times in a day, but they prefer eating only smaller portions as their tiny stomach gets filled quickly.
The requirement for food increases when their bodies become bigger or equal to that of dogs. Dogs consume almost 3% of their body weight, while these insects consume around 30%.
A colony needs more food to meet its survival requirements, which can lead to excessive consumption and storage of food in its stomachs or nests.
You have to feed more food to pet ants, or those living outdoors can come inside to steal food particles from the kitchen and cause contamination of a large proportion of stored food in pantries.
More risk of deadly bites or stings
Ants are responsible for deadly bites due to sharp mandibles that can break thin skin layers when forced to pierce through them. It can lead to severe pain and a burning sensation after the entry of poison.
The size of mandibles and stingers will increase when they become equal to dogs. They are supposed to cause severe injuries and become more dangerous with bigger teeth.
Similarly, the length of a stinger increases automatically when its body length increases from 0.2 or 0.3 inches to 20 or 25 inches, posing a risk of life-threatening stings.
In addition, the quantity of formic acid can increase with the increase in the poison gland’s size, resulting in the injection of an excessive amount of acidic compound in the body.
So, the risk of death increases for owners if they have a large number of dog-sized ants in their yard because they can come indoors anytime and bite them badly.
Affect the population of insects
The insects have a high reproduction rate as a queen can lay a large number of eggs at a single time. For example, a queen can produce almost 600 to 800 eggs in a day, turning into adult worker ants in a few days.
Moreover, they can build larger colonies quickly and are more numerous than any other animal on this planet. However, their reproduction rate also gets affected by an increase in size.
It is considered that their ability to produce brood based on hundreds of eggs will reduce to a small number because the size of an egg or larvae increases.
However, it can also be possible that you have to face severe problems due to overpopulation if their body size is equal to dogs.
It feels like hundreds or thousands of dogs are roaming inside the house and posing a significant risk of contamination and discomfort.
Reduction in weight lifting abilities
The weight-lifting capabilities of arthropods and smaller insects are better than the larger organisms because they have lower body mass and lesser attraction toward the ground.
There is less force of gravity on their tiny bodies that attracts a body to the ground. Accordingly, their bodies can lift heavier objects or load objects of 20 to 50 times their body weight.
Their weight-carrying abilities can get reduced with increased body size when they become equal to dogs in terms of size. In the same way, the force of gravity increases on their bodies.
Furthermore, they can only lift or haul weight that is 2 to 3 times their actual body weight with bigger bodies like all other higher organisms.
Destruction of soil structure
Most commonly, ants live within the soil and create deep underground tunnels to live and propagate. They have smaller bodies and require narrow space to move inside the soil.
Moreover, these mounds are pretty deep and extend to a length of almost 25 to 30 feet after continuous efforts of workers that can take a whole year or a few months.
These organisms are considered beneficial for the plant as they improve soil aeration due to continuous movement in and out of the mounds and the creation of tunnels.
However, they will need more space to live when their body size increases to 1.5 or 2 feet.
They cannot survive within narrow tunnels of mounds after attaining a bigger size or build larger homes within soil if they still follow their behavior of living within mounds.
It can lead to the destruction of the soil structure after the formation of huge mounds that can also disturb the foundations of the building and cause significant structural damage.
Excessive suffocation
Ants do not have lungs as their smaller bodies breathe air through spiracles or tiny openings in their abdomen, which can get closed to store the oxygen.
Their bodies can survive on a small amount of oxygen due to the fewer body cells that do not need excessive oxygen to function.
In addition, they can live for many days by using stored oxygen in their tracheal tubules connected to internal body organs.
The environment supports their breathing behavior due to the low consumption of oxygen in the environment, which has already been reduced from 35 to 21% over time.
Accordingly, the atmospheric oxygen level cannot provide enough air to the larger arthropods or insects if they get bigger in size or become equal to dogs.
They can lose their lives due to suffocation when they do not get enough oxygen to keep their internal processes in running conditions and die immediately.
Easier removal from house
Some people consider it challenging to deal with tiny creatures or insects as they can sneak through smaller spaces and are difficult to be removed from the house.
Moreover, they are present in large numbers and form bigger colonies; it is not supposed to be possible to kill every tiny insect in the house because they usually keep crawling everywhere.
Accordingly, it will be easier to deal with the infestation if they get bigger as there are no chances to leave a few of them because they cannot hide from your eyes.
You can remove them from a house in a better way as you do not have to make enough effort to follow their trails to reach their mounds.
Furthermore, they will become visible to the eyes and can be caught quickly, which can help in efficient removal from the building.
More damage to plants
Ant colonies prefer to build their nests close to the plant roots or other growing regions, like buds, as these regions can provide plenty of food sources and moisture to them.
They can suck sap from the roots and stem region of the plant, but the amount of sap obtained from the plant is negligible, which does not significantly impact their growth.
However, large-sized ants can cause more damage to plants because they will consume excessive plant sap to fulfill their body requirements.
In the same way, the flower nectar cannot meet their body needs resulting in attacks on multiple plants to collect a sufficient quantity of juice from them.
Furthermore, these bigger bodies can be responsible for crop losses because herbivorous insects prefer to eat primarily from fruits and leave a portion of the plant.
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