# Water and Air must appear different to tiny creatures **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 14, 2003, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-and-air-must-appear-different-to-tiny-creatures/195094 "2003-08-14T05:18:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-and-air-must-appear-different-to-tiny-creatures/195094/1 "2003-08-14T05:18:57Z")
Watching an ant today, I got to thinking about how tiny insects and bacteria must perceive water and air. An ant can fall off the Empire State Building, and I presume it just billows lightly to the ground. It’s so small that air resistance must have a much greater effect on it. A tiny insect must perceive water very differently than we do. It can’t really get wet; it might have tiny globules of water stuck to itself though. To take a drink, it must approach a drop of water as if approaching a vertical wall, and expend some effort to break the surface tension. Like kissing silly-putty. Tinier creatures still must approach being able to perceive individual air molecules, or, at any rate, I’m sure the air is a different substance for them than for us. That is my mundane and pointless thought for the day. ---
**Author:** ![Stage\_Manager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stage_manager/32/7267_2.png) [@Stage\_Manager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stage_Manager)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-and-air-must-appear-different-to-tiny-creatures/195094/2 "2003-08-14T05:33:00Z")
I like the way you think. Can I have whatever you’ve been ingesting? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![lel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8797f3/32.png) [@lel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lel)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-and-air-must-appear-different-to-tiny-creatures/195094/3 "2003-08-14T07:02:45Z")
What really intrigues me, however, is the idea of living on a planet where one has to dodge these billions of mile-high creatures that just do seemingly random motions, but if they happen to move in a certain direction, there goes your life! That must be really frightening (well, insofar as ants could be frightened) to be at the whim of billions of quasi-divine creatures. ---
**Author:** ![Standup\_Karmic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@Standup\_Karmic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Standup_Karmic)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-and-air-must-appear-different-to-tiny-creatures/195094/4 "2003-08-14T07:05:41Z")
Sounds kinda like dating women! ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-and-air-must-appear-different-to-tiny-creatures/195094/5 "2003-08-14T07:06:47Z")
I was thinking you meant quantum particles, but then I realized you were talking about _ **us** _! I do try to avoid the little tinies … all spiders must die, though. ---
**Author:** ![lel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8797f3/32.png) [@lel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lel)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-and-air-must-appear-different-to-tiny-creatures/195094/6 "2003-08-14T07:12:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Morkfromork \* > \*\*Sounds kinda like dating women! \*\* I don’t know – most people consider ants to be pests and worthy of extermination, but probably not all women consider you to be a pest worthy of extermination. I hope not extermination anyway! I wonder if spiders pity the poor creatures with only two legs. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-and-air-must-appear-different-to-tiny-creatures/195094/7 "2003-08-14T07:13:01Z")
The OP is substantially correct and indeed the different behaviours of fluids such as air at different scales (or rather a lack of appreciation of the different behaviours) is exactly what inspired the ‘Bumblebee is incapable of flight’ myth. Some very small insects do not fly through the air; they swim - in a few cases, their wings do not consist of flat surfaces at all, but tiny little brushes. If you drop a long-legged spider from an upstaris window, it ‘skydives’ - you can see it stretch out its legs in a star formation, just like a human skydiver; the difference is that the terminal velocity of the spider never gets fast enough to cause a fatal fall.