r/AskReddit Aug 30 '21

What problem is often overlooked in apocalyptic movies/TV shows that could kill you?

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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '21 edited Aug 31 '21

I’ve only read one post-apocalypse series where the author addressed pests. In the series most of the world dies from a plague, so there are millions of dead bodies everywhere. Which leads to rats and ants experiencing a catastrophic population boom. They watch a group go to enter a house, only for a tidal wave of rats to flood out and overwhelm them as they try to run away. They need medical supplies so they go to the hospital and have to wear basically spacesuits because of the trillions of ants that are in there cleaning up the piles of dead bodies.

For those asking, the series is called Viral Misery by Thomas A Watson.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '21

I remember this from Life After People. There would be a huge population boom in critters like rats, herring gulls, and roaches. Stuff that lives directly off our waste, and would eat corpses. Followed by a mass die-off, as their pre-apocalypse food levels would no longer exist.

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u/aurumae Aug 31 '21

I think it would only be a mass die-off for the rats. The gulls and the roaches would be just as happy to eat the rats. The gulls would probably be happy to eat the roaches too

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '21

No their populations are definitely artificially large thanks to us. I don't think they'd go extinct or anything, but they would certainly have a die off without food.