What is the fastest insect in the world?

Even children know that the fastest animal in 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 fastest insect in the world? The article will answer this question.

What insect is faster than all?

Scientists have found that faster than all insects on the planet, the 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.

Awesome flight

Developing a super speed, the dragonfly of the Australian wings makes 100-150 strokes in one second! The human eye is not able to keep track of her movements, the strokes are tracked with the help of a special super-accurate Apparatus. The data were received very recently - in 1999.

During the study of Austrophlebia costalis entomologists found 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.

Special structure of the wings

By the way, very quickly fly all the dragonflies, not just the Australian. The 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.

general description

In addition to the fact that the dragonfly is the world's fastest insect, it 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 course of evolution for many millions of years these insects practically did not change. Prehistoric "rocker" (as they are called in the people) looked just like modern ones.

Dragonfly is a predator. No victim can escape from her, since this is the world's fastest insect, and an excellent hunter: she intercepts mosquitoes, flies and midges on the fly, for a fraction of seconds, determining their flight trajectory and the angle at which she will most conveniently be grabbed Extraction. A dragonfly is never wrong! And she's very hungry too. In just one hour is able to catch and eat 50 flies.

Miracle sight

But the most amazing feature of the "rocker" is the structure of its huge eyes. Scientifically they are called faceted. They look like two large convex semicircles, located on the sides of the head, fixed. 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 peepholes-facets distinguish colors, and the upper ones are only the form of objects.

The researchers found that the dragonflies are very short-sighted, 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 is different.