The beetle’s style of beating its wings is unlike anything previously described, the team found. Its wings make a wide, figure-eight pattern, clapping together at the top of their upstroke to reduce drag and meeting again at the bottom of the downstroke. This wide motion gives the beetle extra power to push through the air.
Crucially, the beetle’s wings are made of bristles. Because of the air friction at these small sizes, those bristles allow the wings to have the flapping power of wings made of membranes, like those of a housefly, but for a lot less mass. A featherwing beetle takes flight, demonstrating a newly discovered wing stroke of the insect group. High-speed video shows that the wings make a wide, figure-eight pattern, giving the tiny insects extra oomph to push through the air.
“The bristled wing rows almost as well [as membranous wings] without letting much air through, like the feather of a bird,” Polilov says. Video recordings of some other featherwing beetles show they have a similar flying style, the researchers say. The beetles’ ancestors were larger than their modern kin. The findings give insights into how insects can retain important athletic abilities as they scale down in size.
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There are worlds within worlds and tiny little natural innovations everywhere.
beetle is head leader of bee?
fascinating!
Gross.
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