"Lily pad beetle" skilful for both water
Water is 100 times as viscous as air, and insects that can live on its surface must have qualities to show movement in both domains . Some, insects like long-legged water striders, continue a small measure of distance from the water with a bounce back of air that lets them skate on the surface. Others, like whirligig beetles, grasp the water and swim.
The lily pad beetle, has evolved with a unique instinct to move in water and air at the same time.
The beetle flies, beating its wings for momentum much as it were taking off into the air. But it remains shackled to the water by claws at the end of its legs that break through the surface and.The movement is very unusual, the beetle is actually doing something like windsurfing, the beetle uses its wings to generate power.
The beetle’s legs repel the water, which help the beetle to float on the surface, except for claws that are tightly clenched to the surface of the water and tie it to the surface
As the beetle tries to fly, the up and down force of its wings and the attachment of the claws make the surface of the water bounce up. The wings almost touch the surface of the water, and the beetle struggle through aerodynamics, surface tension and another kind of drag that appears only when the insect is moving faster than about nine inches a second. The drag force that the use is called capillary wave drag.
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