How thick is the carapace of a beetle, and how thick would that armor
be if the beetle were three feet long?
Yes, I cannot tell a lie, I am still working on "The Metamorphosis."
Nabokov calculates the length of Gregor Samsa's insect body as about
three feet, judging by his ability to reach the doorknob with his
mouth. Nabokov, himself an entomologist of some distinction, also
classes Samsa as a coleoptera and surmises that there are undiscovered
wings folded in his back.
I am wondering what the thickness of that back armor would be in a bug
three feet long, based on the thickness of a normal-sized insect.
(Where I'm heading with this, of course, is what it would have taken
for a thrown apple to have penetrated that shell and lodged there. I
know that Kafka's story is fiction and not a scientific treatise, but
I want to know anyway.)
The answer to the question is a number and unit representing the
calculated thickness of the back of a coleoptera's exoskeleton if the
coleoptera were three feet long, as well as the actual dimension in a
typical insect. We're assuming direct proportion here and not
worrying about how anatomy and physiology would change with increase
in body weight.
Thank you,
Archae0pteryx |
Clarification of Question by
archae0pteryx-ga
on
24 Jan 2005 23:33 PST
Nobody knows how to find out the thickness of a beetle's exoskeleton?
My, my. I can probably handle the arithmetic all by myself,
multiplying the answer by the ratio of, say, a 3/8" creature to a 36"
creature, but I need the value that plugs into the equation.
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Request for Question Clarification by
librariankt-ga
on
25 Jan 2005 05:48 PST
Hey - Part of the problem is that the variation in length of beetles
is enormous - ranging from .25" to 4" - and so the multiplier will be
variant. The hard wings, by the way, are called elytra - elytron is
the singular - and I'm trying to track down dimensions for specific
species. - LKT
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Clarification of Question by
archae0pteryx-ga
on
25 Jan 2005 18:03 PST
Hey, LKT--ok, I didn't know that. Let's take 3/8" as a good, basic
kind of beetle size, certainly big enough for me. If we assume that
the thickness is going to increase with length (even if not in direct
proportion), then when we convert to a 36" length, we can certainly
say "at least" x thickness. Does that help?
Or, if you know enough about beetles to answer, you could just tell me
how thick *you* think the back of the carapace would be for a beetle
that's three feet long.
Archae0pteryx
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Request for Question Clarification by
librariankt-ga
on
20 Feb 2005 19:20 PST
Hey - I haven't found any info on this online, and didn't want to just
drop you (like a bug?)... My suggestion would be to get in touch with
your local agricultural extension office and see if they'll tell you -
they may even have an entomologist who would go out and measure a
local beetle for you! Good luck! LKT
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Clarification of Question by
archae0pteryx-ga
on
20 Feb 2005 19:33 PST
Well, thanks for remembering me, LKT. Some questions do fail to lend
themselves to the GA treatment. I appreciate your looking. The
literary exercise is long over now, and my curiosity, though it
remains, is not (in this case) of the mosquito bite variety, so I can
let it go.
Archae0pteryx
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