Tagged: insects

Winged Robotic Cockroach Informs Debate on Evolution of Flight

Professor Ronald Fearing and his research team at the University of California, Berkeley, originally intended to create a robot that could navigate all types of terrain. When their first robot DASH, short for Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod, fell slightly short of their objective, they decided to attach wings to the robotic cockroach. Only later did […]

Ladybugs, a Soft Spot under that Hard Shell

I think it is fair to make the assumption that almost everyone has seen, and perhaps even picked up a lady bug. When not flying, this beetle looks completely harmless, cute even, but when they lift their shell and show off their large, veiny wings, this creature takes on a completely different form. The Ladybug, […]

Cephalotes atratus, the gliding Darth Vader of the ant world

Convergent evolution is a term used to describe species that have individually evolved to acquire similar biological traits in order to serve the same purpose. Gliding is a befitting example of such evolution – mammals, reptiles, and amphibians alike have all exhibited different means of turning a fall into a smooth, controlled descent, showcasing the […]

Flies: The New Psychics?

We’ve all had the pleasure of having a fly zoom all around our house, and waiting for it to land to hit it, just for it to take off and seemingly know your newspaper or swatter was coming. We often think that we were just too slow for the flies and then we try swatting […]

Turning on a Dime

Flies are almost impossible to catch. Anyone who has waved a fly swatter around, desperately hoping to hit one, will agree. Flies are very fast, but perhaps it isn’t the speed that tricks the desperate human, but rather the remarkable capability for a fly to turn 90° in about 50-thousandths of a second. Already, these […]

Need For Speed: The Hawk Moth

In every class of animals, there are species that push the limits of what their genetic family can do. The peregrine falcon can dive at speeds of up to 200mph. Cheetahs can run up to 70 mph. Insects also have an exceptional species within their ranks, the hawk moth. The hawk moth can fly 12mph […]

How Butterflies Fly

Butterflies can look like simple animals with complicated patterns, they softly flit through the air selecting nectar filled flowers for their daily meals, And while these gentile fliers are by no means tough, their wings are more than twice as effective than a bird’s.

Complex Flight of the Honey Bee

The honeybee, one of the world’s major pollinators. Admirably, about one-third of all our produce comes from the bees’ ability to effectively pollinate plants. At times it seems so simple, the way the Honey Bee flies, from hive, to plant, and back again to the hive. However, the science behind Bee flight is actually quite […]

Desert Locusts: Nature’s marathon “flyers”?

Desert Locusts are capable of flying vast distances without spending much energy. This amazing feature of these creatures have been studied by scientists along the last decades. The answer to the question as to how do they do it is a bit tricky, but it is also very interesting to see how such a small […]

Dragonflies, the mystical insect

Before the age of the internet, computer games, and gaming consoles, kids would play outdoors. When I lived in China as a child, I remember trying to catch dragonflies with my friends; it was impossibly difficult. We would run around in the fields and spend hours in vain trying to catch these elusive insects. As […]