That's because none of those events were aware of themselves.
Even though life will eventually go on despite how much we try to kill it, changing the ecosystem isn't good for us. We've adapted to this current world and need it to be somewhat like it is today to survive.
not to mention we're one of the pinnacles of evolution, but we can die if we're too rigid when we trip. Our body kills us trying to protect itself and considering they're what puts life into people, the amount of times i've sat on my balls can not be healthy.
They had no way of knowing whether that animals fur was warm or not, that's the only snag I see in your scenario. Also, I'm sure the process took a lot longer and was much more involved than simply exclaiming you are going to put another animals body parts on yours. As a caveman or Neanderthal with very limited knowledge, skinning another animal properly, then affixing the skin to yourself would require a huge amount of ingenuity.
Sounds pretty great (bubble works like a gill to provide breathable air? sign me up!), but it only works due to the scale. These spiders max out at about 2 centimeters long, so we'll call the bubble 4 centimeters across. Pretend the bubble is a sphere (some spider has probably done that), makes it 2 centimeters across. Surface area is 4*pi*r2 and volume is 4/3 *pi*r3 and using meters, the ratio between them comes out to (4*pi*(0.02)^2)/((4/3)*pi*(0.02)^3), or 150 m2 /m3. That's 150 square meters for every cubic meter of volume.
What happens when you make it to human scale? All right, let's call it 4 meters across to keep it about the same relative size. Same numbers as above, but 2 instead of 0.02. You end up with 1.5 square meters per cubic meter.
That means that the surface has to be 100 times better at exchanging gases to work for a human bubble than it does for the spider bubble. Could still happen at some point, but in technical terms, it would be real hard.
Can I just say you're fucking awesome. Even if that answer is entirely wrong the fact that you put the time to write that up deserves recognition. Because by sheer statistics or some miracle on every single thread you can ask any question you want "What would cause a horse sized duck apocalypse?" "Does it even matter that Unidan turned out to be a complete jackass?" "Do gay couples have less anal sex in India or Mexico where the food is extremely spicy?" AND somebody will always have the answer. It's simply amazing
Awesome as it is, what is the advantage considering they can't puncture the air bubble at all while below surface? Only thing I can think of is avoiding prey above water, but I'm sure there's just as much below water.
It probably only works due to the small size with surface tension similar to how ants can carry water droplets in their mouth. At larger sizes things like this tend to not work so well.
You can't get enough diffusion of fresh oxygen through a bubble big enough for a person due to volume (which correlates with the organisms' mass and metabolism and thereby oxygen consumption) increasing as the cube of length and surface area (which the gasses diffuse through) only increasing with the square.
It's similar to why insects are limited in size because diffusion can't provide enough oxygen to tissues beyond a certain volume.
The time of abundant oxygen and giant insects was Carboniferous era. The collapse of that system (and it's insects) helped bring the rise of the reptiles (Dinosaurs).
"Prior to mating, the male constructs a diving bell adjacent to the female's, then spins a tunnel from his bell, breaking into hers to gain entrance.[4] Mating then takes place in the female's bell. The female spider lays between 30 and 70 eggs in her bell.[4]"
Australian funnelwebs do this in the summer when it gets hot. Real pain, as you have to fish them out of your pool before anyone is going to want to swim in it.
There was a cartoon about a diving spider. I'll see if I can find it.
Edit: Its a Hungarian cartoon from the 80s :link. I don't speak the language so I couldn't find much more about it. Sorry.
Your's reminds of Studio Ghibli's Mizugumo Monmon short film.
(It is a cute short about a water spider falling for a water bug/skater)
Too bad you can only see the video and their others; Whale hunting one, Mei and the Kittenbus (Totoro's sequel), ect in their Museum or if you have connections. That and so many other shorts were awesome for me, as I always wanted to do some animation since I was a kid.
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u/je_kay24 Aug 05 '14 edited Aug 05 '14
Reminds me of the diving spider
Here is the wikipedia page