School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jun 19;109(25):9822-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1205446109. Epub 2012 Jun 4.
In the study of insect flight, adaptations to complex flight conditions such as wind and rain are poorly understood. Mosquitoes thrive in areas of high humidity and rainfall, in which raindrops can weigh more than 50 times a mosquito. In this combined experimental and theoretical study, we here show that free-flying mosquitoes can survive the high-speed impact of falling raindrops. High-speed videography of those impacts reveals a mechanism for survival: A mosquito's strong exoskeleton and low mass renders it impervious to falling drops. The mosquito's low mass causes raindrops to lose little momentum upon impact and so impart correspondingly low forces to the mosquitoes. Our findings demonstrate that small fliers are robust to in-flight perturbations.
在昆虫飞行的研究中，对复杂飞行条件（如风和雨）的适应机制还了解甚少。蚊子在高湿度和降雨量的地区大量繁殖，在这些地区，雨滴的重量可能超过蚊子的 50 倍。在这项结合了实验和理论的研究中，我们表明，自由飞行的蚊子可以在高速下落雨滴的撞击下幸存下来。对这些撞击的高速录像揭示了一种生存机制：蚊子强壮的外骨骼和低质量使它们不受下落水滴的影响。蚊子的低质量使雨滴在撞击时几乎不会失去动量，因此对蚊子施加的力也相应较低。我们的研究结果表明，小型飞行昆虫对飞行中的扰动具有很强的鲁棒性。
