Paleontologist here.
Though giant insects were around during periods of high atmospheric oxygen, there were other periods of time with giant bugs that had oxygen levels comparable to today.
Basically what I’m saying is you probably wouldn’t need an oxygen chamber, you’d just need to breed em big.
They probably do, or at least the really really big ones. The way they get oxygen to their tissues is pretty much just tubes that take air right to em. You can only have so many tubes to the outside before your exoskeleton is full of holes. More oxygen in the air means fewer tubes.
Exactly! The evidence suggests that oxygen as the gigantism factor was over-hyped. its significant for dragonflies and beetles to an extent, but a lot of it seems to be predation pressure.
But, we haven't tested this for bees.
related: I will accept grant money to breed cuddle bees for science.
