There is a constant flow of mosquito’s flying outside of my house. Sometimes they get in and into my bedroom. When I see them near me I slap them. I make sure I hit them with enough force they end up hitting the wall and/or on the floor. But after a few seconds they are up and flying again. I repeat the process with but they get up again. Then I just resort to killing the little suckers by snatching them and crushing them.
This isn’t only mosquito’s though. The majority of insects are like this. But why? I couldn’t imagine being slapped by a hand 100x larger than me and flying against a wall… and just walking away after a minute. I know bugs are much lighter, but the G-forces they are experiencing should have at least some effect on them as well.
It’s to do with the properties of materials and systems at different scales - same set of reasons that an insect scaled up to human size would probably not even be able to support itself.
Physical strength is more or less a function of the cross-sectional area of muscles or their equivalent. Structural strength (in insects) is a function of the thickness, shape and material of the exoskeleton. Weight is a function of volume. They don’t all scale in proportion, leading to some configurations that can be counterintuitive to human experience.
Which is also why, when tossed down a mineshaft:
-a mouse survives
-a rat dies
-a man is broken
-a horse splashes
It’s quite good fun killing mosquitoes by clapping your cupped hands together. The concussion of the air kills yer mozzie stone dead, but you don’t get any blood on your hands. You’ve then got an undamaged mosquito which is quite an interesting thing to check out with a magnifying glass.
Large grasshoppers are pretty strong but I loved to dig when I was a kid (don’t know why) and I build two small ponds just by going at it almost every day for a couple of years. At some points I hit a next of mole crickets which seemed to me to be the smartest and strongest insects I have ever seen. They could use their front legs to pry my fingers apart. The live underground so I guess they need that strength to dig through anything.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://insects.tamu.edu/images/insects/color/mcrick1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://insects.tamu.edu/images/insects/color/mcrick1.html&h=417&w=673&sz=35&tbnid=23IxWD0y3tMJ::&tbnh=86&tbnw=138&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmole%2Bcrickets&hl=en&usg=__fKR2UgePremVKMK68l2efogtp4k=&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=4&ct=image&cd=1
Large grasshoppers are pretty strong but I loved to dig when I was a kid (don’t know why) and I build two small ponds just by going at it almost every day for a couple of years. At some points I hit a next of mole crickets which seemed to me to be the smartest and strongest insects I have ever seen. They could use their front legs to pry my fingers apart. The live underground so I guess they need that strength to dig through anything.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://insects.tamu.edu/images/insects/color/mcrick1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://insects.tamu.edu/images/insects/color/mcrick1.html&h=417&w=673&sz=35&tbnid=23IxWD0y3tMJ::&tbnh=86&tbnw=138&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmole%2Bcrickets&hl=en&usg=__fKR2UgePremVKMK68l2efogtp4k=&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=4&ct=image&cd=1
Large grasshoppers are pretty strong but I loved to dig when I was a kid (don’t know why) and I build two small ponds just by going at it almost every day for a couple of years. At some points I hit a next of mole crickets which seemed to me to be the smartest and strongest insects I have ever seen. They could use their front legs to pry my fingers apart. The live underground so I guess they need that strength to dig through anything.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://insects.tamu.edu/images/insects/color/mcrick1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://insects.tamu.edu/images/insects/color/mcrick1.html&h=417&w=673&sz=35&tbnid=23IxWD0y3tMJ::&tbnh=86&tbnw=138&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmole%2Bcrickets&hl=en&usg=__fKR2UgePremVKMK68l2efogtp4k=&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=4&ct=image&cd=1
Ah, they’re large grasshoppers?