What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

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What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by fruityloops »

some notes: all of them are based on the bugs we see in day to day life, so no beetles being used as mounts as it weird. it's like asking some guy to give you piggy back rides. another thing, this world takes place in modern day earth and humans don't know they exist. they only see them as normal bugs.

with that out of the way, depsite the fact that many bugs can fly or hop, some don't have that luxury and i'm wondering what animals they could use as mounts or beast of burden.

edit: arthropods, not bugs.

edi: here is every possible sapient races (but without the klingon, it would have been a nightmare to do):
  • Ants
  • Beetles
  • Butterflies
  • Cicadas
  • Cockroaches
  • Dragonflies
  • Fleas
  • Flies
  • Grasshoppers
  • Leafhoppers
  • Lice
  • Mayflies
  • Praying mantis
  • Stink bugs
  • Silverfishes
  • Termites
  • Walking sticks
  • Chiggers
  • Crab spiders
  • Daddy longlegs
  • Harvestmen
  • Mites
  • Orb weavers
  • Scorpions
  • Spiders
  • Ticks
  • Vinegaroons
  • Whip tailed scorpions
  • Wind scorpions
  • Crabs
  • Crayfish
  • Lice
  • Horseshoe shrimp
  • Krill
  • Lobsters
  • Shrimp
Last edited by fruityloops on 17 Sep 2018 22:20, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by LinguistCat »

What about non-insect arthropods, if other insects are out. Although I suppose you'd want to look into the ones that aren't themselves insect eaters. Or did you mean "bug" in a broader context?
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by sangi39 »

fruityloops wrote: 17 Sep 2018 16:56 some notes: all of them are based on the bugs we see in day to day life, so no beetles being used as mounts as it weird. it's like asking some guy to give you piggy back rides. another thing, this world takes place in modern day earth and humans don't know they exist. they only see them as normal bugs.
Wait, why is that weird? We use horses as mounts, sharing a common ancestor with them, and basically every other domesticated mammal, some 100 million years ago, and we eat animals which we share even more common ancestors with than that (in some areas of the world, humans do eat other primates).

Assuming your "humanoid bugs" still evolved from some group within Heteroptera (or as close as within your world), and that branch emerged at roughly the same time, which seems to be somewhere between 300 million and 100 million years ago), then strictly speaking it would be no weirder for them to ride giant beetles than it is for us to ride horses.
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by fruityloops »

sangi39 wrote: 17 Sep 2018 20:23
fruityloops wrote: 17 Sep 2018 16:56 some notes: all of them are based on the bugs we see in day to day life, so no beetles being used as mounts as it weird. it's like asking some guy to give you piggy back rides. another thing, this world takes place in modern day earth and humans don't know they exist. they only see them as normal bugs.
Wait, why is that weird? We use horses as mounts, sharing a common ancestor with them, and basically every other domesticated mammal, some 100 million years ago, and we eat animals which we share even more common ancestors with than that (in some areas of the world, humans do eat other primates).

Assuming your "humanoid bugs" still evolved from some group within Heteroptera (or as close as within your world), and that branch emerged at roughly the same time, which seems to be somewhere between 300 million and 100 million years ago), then strictly speaking it would be no weirder for them to ride giant beetles than it is for us to ride horses.
i meant bug in a broadrer sense. i guess i should have used anthropod.
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by sangi39 »

fruityloops wrote: 17 Sep 2018 20:31
sangi39 wrote: 17 Sep 2018 20:23
fruityloops wrote: 17 Sep 2018 16:56 some notes: all of them are based on the bugs we see in day to day life, so no beetles being used as mounts as it weird. it's like asking some guy to give you piggy back rides. another thing, this world takes place in modern day earth and humans don't know they exist. they only see them as normal bugs.
Wait, why is that weird? We use horses as mounts, sharing a common ancestor with them, and basically every other domesticated mammal, some 100 million years ago, and we eat animals which we share even more common ancestors with than that (in some areas of the world, humans do eat other primates).

Assuming your "humanoid bugs" still evolved from some group within Heteroptera (or as close as within your world), and that branch emerged at roughly the same time, which seems to be somewhere between 300 million and 100 million years ago), then strictly speaking it would be no weirder for them to ride giant beetles than it is for us to ride horses.
i meant bug in a broadrer sense. i guess i should have used anthropod.
Which still raises the same question, why exactly would that be weird given that we ride around on other mammals, which evolved much later and are significantly less diverse?
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by fruityloops »

sangi39 wrote: 17 Sep 2018 20:54
fruityloops wrote: 17 Sep 2018 20:31
sangi39 wrote: 17 Sep 2018 20:23
fruityloops wrote: 17 Sep 2018 16:56 some notes: all of them are based on the bugs we see in day to day life, so no beetles being used as mounts as it weird. it's like asking some guy to give you piggy back rides. another thing, this world takes place in modern day earth and humans don't know they exist. they only see them as normal bugs.
Wait, why is that weird? We use horses as mounts, sharing a common ancestor with them, and basically every other domesticated mammal, some 100 million years ago, and we eat animals which we share even more common ancestors with than that (in some areas of the world, humans do eat other primates).

Assuming your "humanoid bugs" still evolved from some group within Heteroptera (or as close as within your world), and that branch emerged at roughly the same time, which seems to be somewhere between 300 million and 100 million years ago), then strictly speaking it would be no weirder for them to ride giant beetles than it is for us to ride horses.
i meant bug in a broadrer sense. i guess i should have used anthropod.
Which still raises the same question, why exactly would that be weird given that we ride around on other mammals, which evolved much later and are significantly less diverse?

three words: my rhino beetle people may not be smart, but they do have common sense. honestly i'll jsut consult the internet on something. the animals i thought would make for a good mount are maybe turtles? maybe birds that don't bugs? really any small animal that doesn't eat insects and spiders.
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by sangi39 »

fruityloops wrote: 17 Sep 2018 21:04 ...my rhino beetle people may not be smart, but they do have common sense.
I think I missed something there. Are the rhino beetle people not the only sapient arthropod species?
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by fruityloops »

sangi39 wrote: 17 Sep 2018 21:10
fruityloops wrote: 17 Sep 2018 21:04 ...my rhino beetle people may not be smart, but they do have common sense.
I think I missed something there. Are the rhino beetle people not the only sapient arthropod species?
yes. (seriously wished i clarified)
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by sangi39 »

fruityloops wrote: 17 Sep 2018 22:15
sangi39 wrote: 17 Sep 2018 21:10
fruityloops wrote: 17 Sep 2018 21:04 ...my rhino beetle people may not be smart, but they do have common sense.
I think I missed something there. Are the rhino beetle people not the only sapient arthropod species?
yes. (seriously wished i clarified)
Well, surely there are still non-sapient arthropod species that can be used as mounts?

(I'm also confused about the scale here. "[A]ny small animal that doesn't eat insects and spiders" makes it sound like these humanoid insects are still the size of your typical insect. Would that be correct?
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by Salmoneus »

A bug riding a turtle would seem like a human "riding" a glacier...

I don't understand characterisations like "humanoid" when combined with "humans think they're just bugs". If a human saw a humanoid person who looked related somehow to a beetle, they wouldn't just think they were a beetle - because we know that beetles are in fact NOT humanoid.

They could always ride, say, flying mushrooms.
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by sangi39 »

So there are 36 or so "types", "kinds", "species", whatever, of sapient, humanoid (presumably this means they stand upright at the very least) arthropods which, I'm assuming, since humans see them as "normal bugs" (which seems to contradict the humanoid bit, as Sal says, we'd notice that they were pretty different from normal insects), are about the same size as their non-sapient, non-humanoid relatives. If that's the case, then I have a few follow up questions:

1) How did such a body plan evolve independently multiple times? Covergent evolution is a thing, but this would seem to be a pretty extreme example of it. Or are these all later developments from a single humanoid arthropod species which diverged to become similar to other arthropods?

2) If they are that size, then how do they defend against much larger predators, like birds, lizards, frogs, etc. An adult male lion, for example, is about twice the mass of an adult human, while a thrush is about 100,000 times the mass of an individual ant. Insects are typically the prey of a much larger variety of species as opposed to humans, i.e. they may be more susceptible to predation.

3) Given the above point regarding mass, how might a sapient, humanoid species of ant not just tame, but also domesticate an animal that is several thousand times its own weight? And that's assuming you only stick to animals which won't attempt to eat them (at least in our real-world experience the only large-ish domesticated animals that are carnivores are dogs and cats, everything else is a herbivore, more or less).
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by fruityloops »

sangi39 wrote: 17 Sep 2018 23:19 So there are 36 or so "types", "kinds", "species", whatever, of sapient, humanoid (presumably this means they stand upright at the very least) arthropods which, I'm assuming, since humans see them as "normal bugs" (which seems to contradict the humanoid bit, as Sal says, we'd notice that they were pretty different from normal insects), are about the same size as their non-sapient, non-humanoid relatives. If that's the case, then I have a few follow up questions:

1) How did such a body plan evolve independently multiple times? Covergent evolution is a thing, but this would seem to be a pretty extreme example of it. Or are these all later developments from a single humanoid arthropod species which diverged to become similar to other arthropods?

2) If they are that size, then how do they defend against much larger predators, like birds, lizards, frogs, etc. An adult male lion, for example, is about twice the mass of an adult human, while a thrush is about 100,000 times the mass of an individual ant. Insects are typically the prey of a much larger variety of species as opposed to humans, i.e. they may be more susceptible to predation.

3) Given the above point regarding mass, how might a sapient, humanoid species of ant not just tame, but also domesticate an animal that is several thousand times its own weight? And that's assuming you only stick to animals which won't attempt to eat them (at least in our real-world experience the only large-ish domesticated animals that are carnivores are dogs and cats, everything else is a herbivore, more or less).
my setting isn't overly realistic so i might be saying bs. magic. it's freaking magic. ego to be more specific. insects that encounter it become more humanoid and intelligent overtime, explaining why they exist. they're called pillars or totems and are spread throughout the world. the most notable is a tree of ancients, which lives on a remote island off the coast of africa. it's one of the oldest with it dating back to Carboniferous period or the age of mist as my bug people call it.

it also provides a magical veil that creates the illusion that these bug people are normal. now technically, there are non-humanoid arthropods i just want them to ride species that aren't too similar to them. that's why i find the idea of rhino beetle man riding a normal beetle weird if i have to be honest. come to think of it, most of my worlds feel out of place in this site. any forms of physics or science is tossed out in favor of things i personally thought were cool.
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by sangi39 »

fruityloops wrote: 18 Sep 2018 00:11
sangi39 wrote: 17 Sep 2018 23:19 So there are 36 or so "types", "kinds", "species", whatever, of sapient, humanoid (presumably this means they stand upright at the very least) arthropods which, I'm assuming, since humans see them as "normal bugs" (which seems to contradict the humanoid bit, as Sal says, we'd notice that they were pretty different from normal insects), are about the same size as their non-sapient, non-humanoid relatives. If that's the case, then I have a few follow up questions:

1) How did such a body plan evolve independently multiple times? Covergent evolution is a thing, but this would seem to be a pretty extreme example of it. Or are these all later developments from a single humanoid arthropod species which diverged to become similar to other arthropods?

2) If they are that size, then how do they defend against much larger predators, like birds, lizards, frogs, etc. An adult male lion, for example, is about twice the mass of an adult human, while a thrush is about 100,000 times the mass of an individual ant. Insects are typically the prey of a much larger variety of species as opposed to humans, i.e. they may be more susceptible to predation.

3) Given the above point regarding mass, how might a sapient, humanoid species of ant not just tame, but also domesticate an animal that is several thousand times its own weight? And that's assuming you only stick to animals which won't attempt to eat them (at least in our real-world experience the only large-ish domesticated animals that are carnivores are dogs and cats, everything else is a herbivore, more or less).
my setting isn't overly realistic so i might be saying bs. magic. it's freaking magic. ego to be more specific. insects that encounter it become more humanoid and intelligent overtime, explaining why they exist. they're called pillars or totems and are spread throughout the world. the most notable is a tree of ancients, which lives on a remote island off the coast of africa. it's one of the oldest with it dating back to Carboniferous period or the age of mist as my bug people call it.

it also provides a magical veil that creates the illusion that these bug people are normal. now technically, there are non-humanoid arthropods i just want them to ride species that aren't too similar to them. that's why i find the idea of rhino beetle man riding a normal beetle weird if i have to be honest. come to think of it, most of my worlds feel out of place in this site. any forms of physics or science is tossed out in favor of things i personally thought were cool.
That's more of a "realism" thing, I think. Generally speaking, the majority of people on the board, or at least who post about their current conworld projects, are attempting to develop worlds which work more or less as we would expect them to work according to what we find in nature. There are, however, a number of worlds which do involve a fair amount of magic of some kind or another (my conworld does, to an extent, and I think Ahzoh and Sharad9 have worlds that incorporate magic). Where magic does exist, though, it makes sense to state early on that it's there, or we just sort of assume it isn't because we, as real-world people, don't experience it (well, depending on your views on magic in the real world), so we end up asking these sort of questions until we're told "it's magic".

I don't think it's necessarily a case of "you're worlds being out of place", it's just that we, as people critiquing your worlds, will try to find answers to the things we haven't seen explained, which is pretty reasonable overall. Once we have an explanation, we either move on, or we try to give some constructive criticism. Or at least I hope that's what most of us do.
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by Salmoneus »

Salmoneus wrote: 17 Sep 2018 22:59 A bug riding a turtle would seem like a human "riding" a glacier...
Just for fun, I worked this out. Let's take an ant, approximately 1mg. Then let's assume you meant 'tortoise' (because turtles live underwater and wouldn't be convenient to ride). Let's take the common or greek tortoise and say an average weight of 5kg. That's 5 million times heavier than an ant.

For comparison, an average human is 70kg, so an ant is to a tortoise as a human is to something that weighs around 350 million kg. The average iceberg weighs around 100 million kg. This is actually similar to the weight of the largest aircraft carriers - but of course, carriers are made of super-dense material compared to humans, whereas turtles and ants are made of similar stuff. So let's bring it back to something more familiar: elephants. An Indian Elephant is around 5.5 thousand kg.

So, an ant riding a (small) tortoise is the equivalent of one person "riding" a herd of 60,000 elephants yoked together, or one mega-elephant the size of 60,000 elephants put together.

Assuming elephant density remains constant, mass scales with the cube of the linear dimensions. Cube root of 60k is 40, more or less. So we'd be talking about a human riding on an elephant as tall as 40 earth elephants.

Now, an Indian elephant is about 2.5m tall. So 40 elephants comes to about 100m tall. By comparison, Big Ben in London is 96m.

So an ant riding a tortoise would be like a human riding an elephant as tall as big ben.


-----

Similarly, to give a sense of scale, your tree that's lived since the Carboniferous: something like 1/2 to 2/3rds of the depth of the Grand Canyon has been deposited since then. I can only assume your tree is at the bottom of a very, VERY big hole in the ground...
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by elemtilas »

On the other hand, the wee bugfolk could simply breed and ride smaller tortoises. This would make a perfect war juggernaut for some wee small Antfolk battalion!...

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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by DesEsseintes »

I want to see humanoid insects riding dragonflies. [:D]
Edit: Speaking of dragonflies, the weather is hot and steamy in Shanghai at the moment, and the dragonflies are out in swarms. They must love this weather.
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by fruityloops »

ya know. maybe domestic these smaller animals will help. oh and one last thing, still weird. even weirder if a dragonfly person is piggy back riding a normal one. sorry just no insect mounts for the time being okay i'm just not into it. (and ants are one of the least focused races and i think turtles are a better fit for larger species of arthropods. no offense to ant lovers or keepers)
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by Scytheria »

How about having the bugs use their collective intelligence to 'grow' flying machines of some kind (maybe from fungus)? Nothing sophisticated, just a wing, steering and propulsion system? Plenty of fungi have delicate, membranous wing-like parts and some can shoot spores a long distance, so the propulsion isn't (too) far-fetched.
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by fruityloops »

i just noticed something, a lot of people have been suggesting i use fungus as mounts for some apparent reason. like a i understand most birds eat but...a fungus? sorry your suggestion's great but it's little...strange? i might keep it.
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Re: What would humanoid bugs use as mounts?

Post by Creyeditor »

I just had an idea. What about very small bats? It seems that some species of bat are only a few centimeters large, if you check Wiki.
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