Vibrating Thorax Sets Flies’ Wings A-flutter

close up photography of black fly on a yellow flower

Biological Strategy

Flies

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Image: Georg Bommeli / Unsplash / Free non-commercial use

Transform Mechanical Energy

Mechanical energy is made up of kinetic energy (the energy of an object in motion) and potential energy (stored energy). Organisms use mechanical energy in a variety of ways, including capturing prey, transporting seeds, and moving around.

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Modify Position

Many resources that living systems require for survival and reproduction constantly change in quantity, quality, and location. The same is true of the threats that face living systems. As a result, living systems have strategies to maintain access to shifting resources and to avoid changing threats by adjusting their location or orientation. Some living systems modify their position by moving from one location to another. For those that can’t change location, such as trees, they modify position by shifting in place. An example of an organism that does both is the chameleon. This creature can move from place to place to find food or escape predators. But it also can stay in one place and rotate its eyes to provide a 360-degree view so that it can hunt without frightening its prey.

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Insects

Class Insecta (“an insect”): Flies, ants, beetles, cockroaches, fleas, dragonflies

Insects are the most abundant arthropods—they make up 90% of the animals in the phylum. They’re found everywhere on earth except the deep ocean, and scientists estimate there are millions of insects not yet described. Most live on land, but many live in freshwater or saltwater marshes for part of their life cycles. Insects have three distinct body sections: a head, which has specialized mouthparts, a thorax, which has jointed legs, and an abdomen. They have well-developed nervous and sensory systems, and are the only invertebrate that can fly, thanks to their lightweight exoskeletons and small size.

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Quick upper-body motions move insect wings an astounding 1,000 beats per second.

“Flies are capable of beating their wings at speeds up to an astonishing 1000 beats a second. Some flies no longer use muscles directly attached to the bases of the wings. Instead they vibrate the whole thorax, a cylinder constructed of strong pliable chitin, making it click in and out like a bulging metal tin. The thorax is coupled to the wings by an ingenious structure at the wing base, and its contractions causes them to beat up and down.” (Attenborough 1979: 80)

Last Updated August 18, 2016

References

Book

Life on Earth: A Natural History

01/01/1970 | David Attenborough

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