360-300 Million years ago the Earth's oxygen levels were incredibly higher than they are today due to the relatively recent evolution of trees and plant life. This period in time is called the Carboniferous Period and is significant in Palaeontology due to the type of wildlife that thrived in this period. Because Arthropods (Exo-Skeletal creatures) have different lungs to vertebrates, they cannot grow large because their lungs cannot take in enough oxygen to survive, but because in the Carboniferous Period oxygen was so much more abundant, Arthropods(a genus including insects) could grow to incredible sizes.
Creatures like Arthropleura, a 2m long centipede and Meganeura, a dragonfly the size of an eagle, were common place alongside giant scorpions, spiders and large predatory amphibians.
These reason these huge insects died off was because of the higher oxygen levels, any kind of ignition, lightning for example, would create forest fires that would spread incredibly quickly. As most of the Earth at the time was covered in dense forest, having forest fires that would spread far quicker and last longer than present day forest fires created a gradual extinction event. As fires became more frequent forests started to recede and with it the giant insects.
The foundation for my insect design will be in a parallel universe in which the Carboniferous extinction never occurred allowing insects to evolve into bigger and stranger creatures.
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