How Fast Do Insects Fly?
WouterFlies have incredible speed. They can change direction within 1/100th of a second, which is 50 times faster than the blink of an eye. They can also perform rapid, banked turns. This allows them to escape predators and change course. This ability to change direction quickly allows flies to avoid being swatted.
Scientists have had great difficulty figuring out how fast insects fly. One of the first claims made by Charles Townsend, who studied a Deer bot fly, was that it could fly up to 1,287 km/h, although this was later found to be incorrect. The actual speed of a Deer bot fly was later measured at about 40km/h. In an attempt to refute Townsend’s claim, Irving Langmuir calculated that a fly would need to consume 1.5 times its own weight in fuel every second to fly at such speeds.
Researchers have also studied the speed at which flies perceive the world. They found that the brain of animals processes images at high rates, even when they move at a slower rate. Professor Roger Hardie has been investigating the eyes of flies to determine how fast these organisms perceive time. In his experiments, he has successfully demonstrated that their vision is remarkably fast.
Researchers used a high-speed camera to record the movement of flies at 3,000 frames per second. This was then analyzed to determine how these creatures perform acrobatics. The researchers were able to see the resulting movements of the sub-epimeral ridge, which is a bump in the lower side of the thorax.
