Plausible homeworld for an insectoid-ish alien species?
I have a planned species of aliens that have many commonalities with longhorn crazy ants (cooperation with colonies of the same species, can live in a large variety of environments, and have the ability to have genetic variation with a low number of breeding pairs). They are humanoid bipeds with exoskeletons as well as pseudo-endoskeletons, lungs and hearts to pump blood, and regulate heat by a series of capillaries in their mouths (basically just panting like a dog). Individual physical power, as a whole, isn't that much more than a human.
Socially, their "family" units consist of a female queen, a male drone, and twenty to fifty sexless workers (depending on the sub-species). Its like if an entire tribe operates as a single organism, while all having independent minds. Finally, they have the ability to cooperate with other families to form cities, nations, and empires. After a few millennia of advancement, this species took to space.
My question is: what kind of home-world would this species evolve on? Even with my additions to make them environmental generalists, I got no idea how human-sized insects could exist in the first place. I would love to be able to include details about native cuisine and interesting animals they might take with them to space, but at the moment I'm stumped.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/112624. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
0 comment threads