#whereas with markoth he at least tried to keep his wings looking nice but a combo of being a fighter and a loner ended up aving them be rag

[ruthlesslistener]

heyo!! tis me again, perhaps now slightly better known as the shy specbio person lmao

cutting right to the chase cos i already feel like this is gonna get Long; these are all mainly scattered thoughts on how these bugs' everything would work if they were roughly human-sized [or bigger] cos iirc certain things abt bug biology fall apart once a critter's not. small

first n foremost came the issue of. breathing, cos i Doubt spiracles can cut it on anything that isn't relatively bug-sized? we already do encounter a handful of bugs that seem to have 'noses' [n therefore proper lungs, probably], so tis prolly safe to assume others do have those, just hidden. and, if the spiracles are still there [if modified and/or reduced somehow], would they act like 'gills' do on those takes of merfolk that take """human""" form? or would they.. not make enough of a difference either way ? [1/? (cutting these up cos i Do Not Trust tumblr hfjdhfkfh)]

another thought is.. since i imagine all these bugs would still be covered in chitin, maybe they have some sort of padding to their hands [read: beans, probably] that lets them grab stuff.. but hmm. would they, by extension, still have the teeny hairs some bugs have that let them feel things [perhaps it'd become a layer of really light peach fuzz, more present on fluffier bugs],, or would it work more like a turtle's shell and the like? both, neither? [2/?]

next up was the thought of just how moths n butterflies would eat, here -- most other bugs seen would logically have some form of mandibles and the whole shebang, but these dudes.. whether or not they can actually open their mouths proper, i imagine theyve a sort of proboscis that rests within at an angle [to keep it outta the way while they talk, perhaps?]. if they can open their mouths, would they have really stubby sort of 'beaks'? [either way it'd prolly extend to all kinds of moths, saturniid-like ones, otherwise they would Not last long]

as for what they'd eat.. i do imagine they'd depend on pretty soft diets [nectar, tea, soups.. soft pastries and the like at most]? [i'm,, well aware that there's (most likely) exceptions to the 'eats mostly sweet stuff' rule when it comes to these critters but am also currently too tired to properly think of a specific one so. yes. spiders george rule (but still fascinating to think about) gdfjkgdf] [3/?]

continuing on the butterfly/moth train, now with thoughts on just how those wings work, mostly spawned by the fact that we both see them draped about a bug's body like a big cloak.. and fanned out for flight

going off how, irl, these critters will pump haemolymph [and air, iirc??] into their wings to straighten them out before they harden.. would the hk ones have a more developed take on those networks of veins, where they're somewhat sectioned off into little chambers by valves? and, as the chambers fill up, the wings fan out further and further and grow more stiff? [to go with that, perhaps there'd be what basically amounts to an extra pocket of blood for said wings, since... draining blood that's being used elsewhere to repurpose it for flight won't exactly end well, i don't think. neither will getting that pocket injured one way or another but shh]. [4/?]

and perhaps.. in their case, their shoulder muscles still wouldn't be strong enough to let them 100% hover and/or pull.. whatever things like dragonflies have going for them [there's honest-to-god a whole other tangent i could go off on, here, about how beetle-esque wings would work and just how any possible elytra could be lifted for long periods of time (lock-in tendons reminiscent of the ones owls have that let them grab things Like That?) but this has gotten long enough so i will,, chill lmao]

that aside, i still kinda think they'd have scales of some sort, all over them.. and perhaps that'd make flying in the rain and/or whathaveyou tricky, since things can get stuck between those scales and weigh the wing down, eventually [ooh perhaps.. the whole idea of mutual grooming could tie in here rather nicely.. doubly so for the Very fluffy moths/butterflies]

ah what if wings can be rather sensitive, too [esp the closer one draws to the shoulder], so the whole idea of letting someone else touch one's wing could be a Whole Thing for some bugs.. [5/?]

yeah god this got really long huh. do hope you enjoy the rambling [which i am only temporarily done doing ngl] n thanks for bearing with me sjshjssjs [6/6,, dear god jhfdgk]

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YOOO I JUST LOGGED ON TODAY AND THIS IS SO NEAT??? LEMME BREAK THIS SHIT UP INTO BULLET POINTS BC YEAH THIS IS SHIT IVE THOUGHT ABOUT AND IT’S F U N

-First off, yeah I imagine that they would need lunglike structures for breathing!! Mostly just bc it’s more efficient for larger organisms, and the whole deal with talking would most likely require more air being pulled into the body and expelled out, unless there’s something about bug speech that we don’t know about, like some of the sounds are produced through stridulating. I def. feel like their lungs wouldn’t be similar to ours tho, they would probs be like,,,analogous structures, esp. bc I feel like their need for oxygen could be at least partially quenched by the use of spiracles. Lungs are a very old organ that evolved so the fact that they already had alternate breathing means would imply that the development of lungs in anthro insects would probs be as a breathing aid/speech allowance as they got bigger and started to speak like us

-YEAH I personally include pawpads with a good chunk of HK designs (way more heavily on the gods tho, who I hc to have more reptilian/mammalian characteristics bc those would be terrifying, alien features to bugs, even if I don’t personally think that they’d be common or present in the HK world) is bc they’d need a lot of grip. I don’t feel like they’d be of a rougher chitin texture though- if anything, I feel like they’d be made up of a lot of very small overlapping chitin plates that form a sort of flexible velcro pattern to them? If that makes sense. It would still feel soft and squishy/leathery to us probs but that would allow lots of texture to grip with, and the flexibility required for hands. I think that if the teeny hairs were a thing then they’d most likely still continue to be a thing w/bugs that previously had them, they’d just be more dense and fine to be able to create the sorta static cling thing that geckos have (not exactly ofc, just a mimicry of that design). You’d probs see them go either one way or the other bc really the grip thing is still very useful, it’s just that you need to have the genes for those features to exacerbate them to get either of those attributes. So I def. feel like there'd be a lot of variation with that kinda thing, bc dexterity would be favored. We also see bugs like Ogrim and Gallien who don't have hands at all, so for them I'd assume that there's lots of miniscule hooks along their claws that help them grab and pull things; hands look to be more of a luxury in HK, so I'd assume it to be extremely varied between different species

-Yea bugs with proboscis are kinda funky bc that really calls shit like speech into question, not to mention feeding,,,I think with the moth tribe I had a joke headcanon where they actually fed off of essence and the reason why they all died post-Radi-fall is bc as soon as they reached fuckin’ age they all starved to death once PK convinced them to forget their old traditions, but in actuality I feel like they would have some sort of proto-mouth that would allow them to eat some sort of solids, like they retained some infantile, caterpillar-esque features post-metamorphasis. I def. think that they wouldn’t have the range of motion or chewing abilities as other bugs tho bc it would be more a means of coiling their proboscis inside their throat/head (like a woodpecker!) and speaking instead of being dedicated to the sort of robust chewing that others do, since its an in-between of their larval mouthparts and their adult versions. More primitive moth species DO retain chewing mandibles, but in the adults they tend to remain nonfunctional, so they don’t entirely disappear? Which means that its def. possible for them to have actual mouths if the evolutionary pressures for ‘FUCK AND STARVE’ wasn’t favorable. Given the fact that there appear to be a great deal of adult moths/butters about, I’d say that’s probably the case XD. But either way, sugary foods would most likely be favored bc they allow for higher calorie/glucose intake faster compared to other food types, which has very exciting implications for lil’ Hornet getting into Lurien’s food cabinet JKSFHBGSD 

-Also I def. think that their wings would need to be more robust than they would be irl, esp. since we see them comfortably using them as cloaks. What I assume is that the actual wings themselves are a lot more tough and flexible than they would be irl, and that it’s generally more beneficial/less tedious to keep ‘em limp than in flight mode 24/7, esp. if there’s the risk of them tearing and losing hemoglyph. So maybe there’s a flight/display mode and a rest mode, where they can consciously go between the limp, flexible, capelike structure with less blood in it that means less damage if they’re caught and torn, and a mode where more hemoglyph is pumped through veins in the wings to help stiffen them. In that case, a valve system would be likely,,,but I can also see more of a focus on air pockets in the wings with tough locking ligaments, like with birds, bc that would make them be quite light anatomically and have stiffening them be less of a risk. The limp-wing cloak phenomenon can also be explained as a sort of preservation method for them too, bc when they’re in a limp state they’re less likely to tear easily. Ligaments would also allow for a quick means of snapping between cloak state and flight state too, compared to the hemoglyph way- I mean, just think of boners in men. It takes some time to get enough blood pumped in to get all the way up to a full erection, whereas flexing your fingers, wrists, etc take no time at all! As for the scales, I agree with you in that they’d most likely still be a feature of the wings and be a pain in the ass to deal with. They might not lose their scales as easy bc they’re focused more on being durable than taking a hit, and there’s probs waterproofing on the scales themselves, like bird feathers, but that doesn’t mean they’re impervious. And yeah, it would also add quite a bit to the mutual grooming idea! I can see grooming near the base of the wing to be a pain, and the added bonus of that area being sensitive would allow for some sweet group-bonding to occur ^^ Like, y’know how birds will go into a daze of sorts when you’re giving them scritches? I can see that being a thing! It would def. encourage more mutual grooming and trust in communities, so that would be something big for moths/butters (and could also explain why Markoth’s wings look a lil more scruffy and raggedy than Thistlewind’s- we already know that he was an antisocial bastard, I wouldn’t be surprised if he rejected being groomed and ended up looking rather scruffy as a result)

Anyways thank you for your thoughts!! This was a LOT of fun for me to think out and reply to, esp. bc it had me reading up on cool articles and shit to make sure I got my facts right. Specbio is SO MUCH FUN and it has so many applications in worldbuilding and culture designing that’s just,,,,aaaa so much fun