Даже дети знают, что самое быстрое животное в the world is a cheetah. He at a short distance accelerates to a speed of 130 km / h and can overtake the car! Do you know what is the world's fastest insect? The article will answer this question.
Scientists found that faster than all insects onplanet dragonfly is Australian or Austrophlebia costalis. It can develop a speed of 50-55 km / h! It was even brought to the Guinness Book of Records as the fastest insect in the world, fixing the speed of its flight at 58 km / h! Many scientists report that, according to their observations and calculations, Austrophlebia costalis is able to overcome a distance of 100 km for a part. However, this fact has not yet been documented.
Developing super speed, the dragonfly is AustralianWith his wings he makes 100-150 strokes in one second! The human eye is not able to follow its movements, the strokes are tracked with the help of a special super-accurate aparthrop. The data were received very recently - in 1999.
During the study of Austrophlebia costalis entomologistsfound out that this is the world's fastest insect able to overcome just huge distances - thousands of miles! Often even in the open ocean there are dragonflies, while they are removed to 1700 or more kilometers from their permanent habitat.
Кстати, очень быстро летают все стрекозы, а не only Australian. High speed of their flight is provided by a special flapping device of the wings. It is noteworthy that, for better maneuvering, the dragonfly waves the front and rear wings in turn, and to increase the speed of the flight simultaneously. Also on their transparent wings, closer to the top, there is a pterostigma - a cuticular thickening consisting of denser and pigmented veins, looks like a dark-skinned patch. Pterostigma performs such useful functions: due to weighting of the top of the wing it increases the amplitude of its span, strengthens its leading edge, extinguishes dangerous vibrations and auto-oscillation of the wings when the insects reach the maximum flight speed.
Кроме того, что стрекоза - самое быстрое в мире an insect, she is also an amazing creature. They appeared long before the dinosaurs, being one of the most ancient creatures on the planet. According to scientists it was the dragonflies who first of all on Earth mastered airspace.
It is noteworthy that during the evolution for many millions of years these insects practically did not change. Prehistoric "rocker" (as they are called in the people) looked the same as modern ones.
Dragonfly is a predator.No victim can escape from it, since this is the world's fastest insect and an excellent hunter: it intercepts mosquitoes, flies and Simuliidae right on the fly, for a fraction of seconds, determining their flight trajectory and the angle at which it will most conveniently be grasped extraction. A dragonfly is never wrong! And she's very greedy. In just one hour is able to catch and eat 50 flies.
But the most amazing feature of the "rocker" -the structure of her huge eyes. Scientifically they are called faceted. They look like two large convex semicircles, located on the sides of the head, motionless. They consist of 30 thousand separate eyes - facets, each of which sees a tiny part of the surrounding world, and all together they give a three-dimensional mosaic picture. And the view of the view of the dragonfly covers almost 360 degrees, that is, it sees everything in front, from the sides and from behind simultaneously. The lower peephole-facets distinguish colors, and the upper ones are only the shape of objects.
The researchers found that the dragonfly is veryshortsighted, they begin to see clearly only from a distance of two meters, but at the same time they possess exceptional maneuverability, accuracy of flight and speed of reaction. As it is possible for scientists so far remains a mystery.
Now you know which insect is the fastest in the world, and what features it differs from.
