Matthew sent me this link and ordered me to post it. So I will, for it’s well worth posting.
This is from the Ant Lab video site, but it shows not Hymenoptera but Lepidoptera, filmed at takeoff and landing at 6000 frames per second. My favorite is the stately white-spotted prominent at 3:59.
YouTube notes and IDs:
All the moths in this video were collected and filmed in Cornish, NH between July 12 – 16. All moths were released after filming.
00:00 – Rosy maple moth
01:01 – Polyphemus moth
02:01 – Dark marathyssa
02:45 – Virginian tiger moth
03:18 – Beautiful wood-nymph
03:59 – White-dotted prominent
04:29 – Blinded sphinx
Interesting and beautiful moths. Wonderful video. Thank you.
Fascinating to watch them gather air in their wings and push it down. Really interesting though was watching the moths in the sixth scene who were able to produce lift when they were upside down by reverse flapping. They have to have some kind of understanding of how it works to be able to accomplish the feat with the back side of their wings as well as with the front side.
Thank you for listening to Matthew and thank you Matthew. Fascinating.
It’s amazing to think that the body designs and the behaviors, the instinctive knowledge of how to flap their wings to produce lift, are all the result of natural selection over vast periods of time.
Beautiful and so fuzzy! The wings don’t seem shaped to produce lift like birds or airplanes using the Bernoulli effect but simply forward thrust. I suppose at their size and speed, lift would be negligible. Instead, they start flapping and then point their bodies in the desired direction. While airborne they must be able to change direction by twisting their bodies or by differential flapping.