Can an insect evolve to look and function like a mammal?

I'm working with this alien race that looks and functions essentially like a mammal - skin, muscles, hair, internal bones, large size, etc. - but evolved from an insect or other bug. They're a large, about human sized, very territorial ambush predator species, and their planet is about Earth sized, filled with many unpredictable dangers such as predators and even carnivorous plants.

So far my only ideas as to how they'd acquire skin and an internal bone structure would be for their chitin to fuse together so they can become more flexible and chase faster, more agile prey, while their exoskeleton retreated to become an endoskeleton while still being made out of thick chitin, of course.

Mammalian traits that are not required: Live birth, warm bloodedness, and milk producing abilities.

Is this possible? And if it is, why would my creature evolve like this?

posted almost 5 years ago

FelisMiscellaneous‭

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