Although water striders are small insects, they have an amazing ability to withstand the impact of raindrops that are tens of times heavier than themselves. Slow-motion video of being crushed by water reveals tricks to avoid being crushed by water, including how to ride a water jet, shoot into the air and somersault before landing. There is.
As their name suggests, water striders can be found walking along the surface of ponds, lakes, and rivers around the world. They have long legs covered in microscopic hairs that trap air and help the insect float in water.
“One day I saw them skating by the water and thought, ‘What do they do when it rains?'” andrew dickerson at the University of Tennessee. The weight of a raindrop is more than 40 times that of an adult water strider. “How do they survive? Submerged or thrown into the air?” he added.
To investigate, Dickerson and his colleagues placed several water striders in a glass aquarium filled with water, applied droplets of water, and recorded the creatures’ reactions on slow-motion video.
The researchers noticed that when raindrops hit insects on the water’s surface, the insects initially remained unharmed because of their low density. However, it was dragged into the resulting impact crater. The crater’s collapse then spewed out a stream of water that returned to the surface, taking the insects with it.
In a few cases, the researchers witnessed water striders jumping from the water jets before they returned to the surface. “It was so beautiful. You could see it do backflips out of that jet,” Dickerson says.
However, if the water strider cannot escape from the jet of water, it will be sucked back down. Luckily, their hairy, water-repellent feet allowed them to float and swim back to the surface.
“This is the equivalent of them surviving when we get hit by a car, and in some cases going through a very acrobatic journey in the process,” Dickerson said. .
topic:
Source: www.newscientist.com
