Ancient Giant Insects Breathing Easy

When I was 8 years old, my parents took me to the Royal Tyrrell Museum - 4 hours in a car, 2 kids, 4 juice boxes, a side-of-the-highway bathroom break and we arrived.  I remember pleading with my parents to buy me a shirt from the young children's section.  Ironed on the front of a fluorescent yellow Tee was a menacing Tyrannosaurus rex, its tiny little forearms curled under its gaping wide, tooth-filled mouth ready to gobble up a passing herbivore.

I remember thinking to myself, why were these dinosaurs so big, and how did they get that way?  My parents received the brunt of these questions, unwaveringly answering either "because God made them that way," or, "I don't know, go ask that employee."  More often than not, they answered the latter.

Furthermore, I remember the giant dragonflies in the exhibit, hiding among the tall plastic replica club mosses.  They seemed like a footnote of deep time, a 100 million year old superscripted arabic numeral, a minor detail among giant strokes no one will take time to look up. Its paper-mache wings and elongated torso were important enough to be included in the exhibit, yet it appeared to be constructed with little care or interest.  Why? Because strung up before me was a five meter tall animal capable of eating everyone standing dumbfounded around it.

These giant insects would make the supertroopers drop a super load in their space pants. Yet, the inquisitive eight year old in me is asking 'Why' and 'How'.

Researchers have devised an interesting way of answering 'How' - for why is much more difficult to address.