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#Post#: 3682--------------------------------------------------
Re: Flight
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 30, 2015, 7:37 pm
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HTML http://dragonflywoman.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/libellula-vibrans-male.jpg
Do Dragonflies Catch Insects on the Ground?
HTML http://www.desismileys.com/smileys/desismileys_1730.gif
Dragonflies are efficient predators and can catch a variety of
insect prey while on the wing. However, they are unable to hunt
without flying, or even to walk at all, so a dragonfly with
damaged wings is likely to starve to death.
Dragonflies start life as aquatic larvae, and will live in the
water for up to two years before transforming into their adult
form. Once they have wings, dragonflies become extraordinary
flyers, capable of moving in all directions, of hovering and
even of flying backwards. They can reach speeds of up to 35
miles per hour and will predict the movement of prey to
intercept it, rather than just chase it down.
More about dragonflies:
•Dragonflies have the most complex eyes of any insect species,
with over 30,000 facets, and can see more colors than humans,
including ultraviolet light.
•Fossilized dragonflies have been found with wingspans of up to
two feet across.
•Dragonflies are particularly good at keeping down mosquito
populations. ;D A single dragonfly might eat hundreds of
mosquitoes in a single day.
HTML http://www.wisegeek.com/do-dragonflies-catch-insects-on-the-ground.htm
#Post#: 3770--------------------------------------------------
Re: Flight
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: September 14, 2015, 9:54 pm
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[center]
HTML http://www.mama-knows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Broad-Billed_Hummingbird_003.jpg[/center]
[center]Robot designers want to copy the hummingbird
[/center]
by David Catchpoole
Engineers at Japan’s Chiba University who aim to build miniature
flying robots want to copy bird wing flexibility and movement in
their designs.1
They chose the hummingbird2 as their ‘wing model’ because its
capacity to hover quite still while feeding on nectar means they
can be studied more easily than other birds. “And they’re quite
small,” explained researcher Masateru Maeda, who used high-speed
cameras to capture the way that the hummingbird precisely bends
and flexes its wings, adding, “Larger birds that cannot hover
have to be studied in wind tunnels.”1
The researchers found that the movement of the primary flight
feathers changes the shape and size of the wings to precisely
control the lift they generate.
Because hummingbirds can hover quite still while feeding on
nectar, you don’t need a wind tunnel to study them.
This research project is but one of many around the world where
engineers are seeking to incorporate evident design features in
nature into their own designs. Not just in the expanding field
of micro air vehicles (MAVs)3,4,5,6,7 but also in a host of
terrestrial and aquatic enterprises. E.g. ceiling-walking
lizards and insects are inspiring scientists to make detachable
super-adhesives, for applications such as window-cleaning
robots;8,9 desert creatures are providing the inspiration for
improvements to machines that have to traverse sandy terrain;10
fish and even single-celled organisms are inspiring better
submarines.11,12
And just as no-one should dispute that the resulting robots and
other machines have been intelligently designed, nor should
anyone dispute that design in nature wasn’t ‘by chance’ either
HTML http://www.desismileys.com/smileys/desismileys_0293.gif
(Romans
1:20). For more, see creation.com/biomimetics
HTML http://creation.com/copy-hummingbird
#Post#: 4029--------------------------------------------------
Re: Flight
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: October 21, 2015, 12:31 am
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[center]
HTML https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Apus_apus_-Barcelona,_Spain-8_(1).jpg[/center]
[center]Apus apus (Common Swift) [/center]
[center]How Much of the Time Is a Common Swift in the Air?
???[/center]
Young common swifts will stay airborne for two to three years
:o, landing only for brief moments to check out possible nesting
sites. These birds are able to eat insects caught in mid-air and
will drink, sleep and mate while flying.
[center]
HTML http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/naturelibrary/images/ic/credit/640x395/c/co/common_swift/common_swift_1.jpghttps://student.societyforscience.org/sites/student.societyforscience.org/files/main/articles/a622_3987.jpg[/center]
Common swifts are the only bird that spends this much time on
the wing without landing. Even nest building materials are
gathered from airborne debris on windy days and are stuck
together into a nest with saliva.
[center]
HTML http://ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/swift_2a.jpg[/center]
The common swift has feet that are ill-adapted to any kind of
walking or perching, but can cling to vertical surfaces like
cliff faces and the eaves of old houses where they commonly make
their nests.
More about swifts:
The common swift lives in Europe and Asia during the summer
breeding season and migrates to Central and Southern Africa for
the rest of the year.
[center]
HTML https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Mauersegler_map.png/300px-Mauersegler_map.png[/center]
The common swift can reach diving speeds of up to 135 miles per
hour. :o
[center]
HTML http://incrediblebirds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Swift-Common-swift-public-domain.jpg[/center]
[center]We are called Swifts for a good reason. ;D[/center]
In order to stay safely out of reach of predators while
sleeping, swifts can drift up to 10,000 feet high during the
night. It's likely they sleep in a similar way to dolphins, by
shutting down half of their brain at a time to rest.
HTML http://www.wisegeek.com/how-much-of-the-time-is-a-common-swift-in-the-air.htm
#Post#: 4119--------------------------------------------------
Re: Flight
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: November 21, 2015, 3:10 pm
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Watch This Eagle Snatch a Drone in Mid-Air ;D
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX3uOQiZs0A&feature=player_embedded
HTML http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/18/watch-eagle-snatch-drone/?
#Post#: 4473--------------------------------------------------
Re: Flight
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: February 10, 2016, 8:43 pm
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[center]
HTML http://dl6.glitter-graphics.net/pub/2752/2752256x4e962185l.gif<br
/>[/center]
[move]Lady Bug Life Cycle[/move]
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/c-Z6xRexbIU[/center]
#Post#: 4840--------------------------------------------------
Re: Flight
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: April 6, 2016, 9:27 pm
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[center]
HTML http://hridayayoga.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/dragonfly-jane-brack.jpg[/center]
[center]Watch a dragonfly grow its wings in this wonderful
time-lapse video[/center]
Melissa Breyer (@MelissaBreyer)
Science / Animals
April 4, 2016
When we see a dragonfly flitting around the garden or pond, the
insect world's equivalent of a fairy doing some summertime
magic, seldom do we think of how it came to be.
As it turns out, these graceful skimmers spend between one and
five years under water in the nymph stage, where they are
ferocious predators with, as Wired magazine puts it, incredibly
fast weaponized mouthparts. Yikes. ;D
When they finally emerge to take form as the dragonfly we know
and love, they do so with a set of lumps on their backs ...
these will become wings. And not just any wings, but the most
powerful wings in the insect kingdom.
Thankfully they have a glorious life above water, because it
generally only lasts long enough to mature and reproduce, from a
few weeks to up to six months.
Smithsonian produced this fascinating video showing not only
life under water and those super grabby mouthparts, but also the
growth of a dragonfly's wings in time-lapse.
So cool, see it here:
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/8.gif
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/cyt4HtcMPgg[/center]
HTML http://www.treehugger.com/animals/watch-dragonfly-grow-its-wings-wonderful-time-lapse-video.html
#Post#: 4846--------------------------------------------------
Re: Flight
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: April 7, 2016, 5:58 pm
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[center]
HTML http://dl5.glitter-graphics.net/pub/3328/3328805eipbi6o30e.gif[/center]
[center]
Why Butterflies Zig Zag "wildly" ;)[/center]
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/Utw0YLvynCk[/center]
[center]
HTML http://dl3.glitter-graphics.net/pub/723/723623pjc70713cu.gif[/center]
#Post#: 5404--------------------------------------------------
Re: Flight
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: July 5, 2016, 6:00 pm
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Agelbert NOTE: Great frigate birds are fantastic gliders. Even
their wings seemed designed for light weight for maximum lift
because they do not have the oils all other sea birds secrete to
make their wings waterproof so they can rest on the ocean
surface. Great frigate birds must stay aloft, and even catch its
prey in the air. They follow tuna and dolphin around because the
flying fish and others jump out of the water to escape the
threat below. That's when the Great frigate bird becomes the
threat from above.
PHYS.ORG
Biology Plants & Animals
[center]Great frigate birds found able to fly for months at a
time[/center]
July 1, 2016 by Bob Yirka report
[center]
HTML http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/2016/57766d5696f90.jpg
[/center]
[center]A juvenile frigatebird. Credit: Henri Weimerskirch CEBC
CNRS [/center]
(Phys.org)—A small team of researchers with members from France,
the U.K., Canada and Germany has discovered that the great
frigate bird (Fregata minor) is able to stay aloft for up to two
months at a time. In their paper published in the journal
Science, the team describes how they affixed trackers to several
of the birds as part of a two-year study, what they found, and
even offer some ideas on how the birds manage to sleep. Raymond
Huey and Curtis Deutsch, with the University of Washington in
Washington State, offer a Perspective piece on the work done by
the team in the same journal issue.
To learn more about the birds, the group managed to capture
several specimens during their infrequent and short stays on
land—they held on to them just long enough to affix extremely
lightweight transmitters that were capable of monitoring GPS
positioning, altitude, heart rate and acceleration in any
direction. That allowed them to track the movements of a variety
of birds and how much energy they were exerting.
In analyzing the data, the researchers discovered that the birds
were able to stay in the air so long for two reasons; the first
is that the expend very little energy because they rely on
updrafts to keep them aloft. The second reason is because when
they do eat, they simply swoop down out of the air to catch a
fish that has jumped out of the water to avoid a predator from
below. They have to be careful though, because they do not have
waterproof wings.
In charting their flight patterns, the team found that the birds
travel incredible distances—sometimes covering up to 250 miles
in a single day. They also found that the birds were able to
take advantage of another type of updraft when need be, they
would slip under a cumulus cloud and allow themselves to be very
quickly pulled upward (up to 5 meters per second), without
having to flap their wings a single time. Such sudden elevations
could take them as high as 4,000 meters, where the air is
extremely thin, and the temperature freezing. From there, they
would glide down for hours, until reaching another updraft.
[center](EXCELLENT VIDEO at article link) Credit: Aurelien
Prudor / Henri Weimerskirch CEBC CNRS [/center]
The birds live in the air over the Pacific and Indian Oceans,
which means they are subject to the doldrums, but they have, the
team found, discovered a means for handling them as well —they
simply hang around on the edges taking advantage of the updrafts
in the small clouds that develop around the edges. ;D
The birds are able to glide so well, the team notes, because
they have the least amount of body weight distributed over the
total area of their wings of any bird. :o
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/8.gif
They also suggested the
birds might actually sleep for just minutes at a time as they
are carried effortlessly up into clouds.
Explore further: Study shows alpine swift can stay aloft for 200
days
More information: H. Weimerskirch et al. Frigate birds track
atmospheric conditions over months-long transoceanic flights,
Science (2016). DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf4374
Abstract
Understanding how animals respond to atmospheric conditions
across space is critical for understanding the evolution of
flight strategies and long-distance migrations. We studied the
three-dimensional movements and energetics of great frigate
birds (Fregata minor) and showed that they can stay aloft for
months during transoceanic flights. To do this, birds track the
edge of the doldrums to take advantage of favorable winds and
strong convection. Locally, they use a roller-coaster flight,
relying on thermals and wind to soar within a 50- to 600-meter
altitude band under cumulus clouds and then glide over
kilometers at low energy costs. To deal with the local scarcity
of clouds and gain longer gliding distances, birds regularly
soar inside cumulus clouds to use their strong updraft, and they
can reach altitudes of 4000 meters, where freezing conditions
occur.
Journal reference: Science search and more info website
HTML http://phys.org/news/2016-07-great-frigate-birds-months.html
HTML http://phys.org/news/2016-07-great-frigate-birds-months.html
#Post#: 5947--------------------------------------------------
Re: Flight
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: November 23, 2016, 5:31 pm
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[center]
HTML http://www.indianapoliszoo.com/PublishingImages/1-3-2%20header%20Budgies%20in%20flight-Don%20Reynolds%20Imaging.jpg[/center]
[center]
Why Don't Birds Ever Collide?
HTML http://www.desismileys.com/smileys/desismileys_6656.gif<br
/>
HTML http://www.desismileys.com/smileys/desismileys_1730.gif[/center]
You’d think that with all the flocks of birds navigating the
sky, there would be the occasional head-on collision. But birds
are highly skilled aviators with fast reflexes -- and a good
understanding of what to do when two are on the same flight
path. A recent study at Australia’s University of Queensland
found that birds appear to know to veer right if another is
headed straight at them.
The researchers tested seven male budgerigars (also known as
“budgies” or parakeets) in a 70-foot (21.3 m) tunnel over a
four-day period, and recorded zero mishaps. About 85 percent of
the time, the birds veered right, and often adjusted their
altitude to avoid mid-air crashes.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/8.gif
The aerial rules of engagement:
•In the study, the birds rarely flew at the same height,
suggesting that individual birds may have specific altitude
preferences.
•Interestingly, aircraft pilots are taught to veer to the right
when they perceive an imminent head-on collision with another
aircraft, said Mandyam V. Srinivasan, head of the research
group.
•Birds are more prone to collisions with man-made obstacles.
Sometimes, birds fail to see wires, especially near dawn or at
night. Reflections from glass windows can also fool them,
sometimes with deadly results.
HTML http://www.wisegeek.com/why-dont-birds-ever-collide.htm
[center]
HTML http://f.tqn.com/y/exoticpets/1/W/E/Y/1/cute-girl-with-a-budgie-165581065.jpg[/center]
#Post#: 6093--------------------------------------------------
Re: Flight
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: December 17, 2016, 5:51 pm
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[center]
HTML https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/ae/71/28/ae7128e5a6e8549120e7dbafef327d62.jpg[/center]
[center]Which Bird Can Glide the Farthest?
HTML http://www.desismileys.com/smileys/desismileys_6656.gif
[/center]
The wandering albatross is known for its ability to fly at great
speeds and go long distances with very little effort. This
seabird is capable of traveling 10,000 miles (16,093 km) in a
single journey and circumnavigating the globe in as little as 46
days. Scientists have long wondered how this fantastic flyer can
travel up to 600 miles (966 km) a day without flapping its
wings.
[center]
HTML https://media1.britannica.com/eb-media/58/76058-004-87442D35.jpg[/center]
The secret is its mastery of “dynamic soaring,” which involves
gaining height by angling its enormous wings while flying into
the wind, then turning and swooping at speeds as high as 67 mph
(108 km/hr).
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/u/ss/fQYSUbVfts-T7pS2VP2wnKyN8wxywmXtY0-FwsgxpixMsdZSAnF2GnHtVu7fNqEDW6vDkbmaXpgvZULH13xm/[/img][/center]
A fast flyer on endangered list:
•The albatross’ lifespan is roughly 60 years and its wingspan is
the widest of any bird -- up to 3.5 meters (11.5 feet).
[center]
HTML https://images6.alphacoders.com/438/438704.jpg[/center]
•While the albatross has existed for about 50 million years, all
22 species are now endangered. :( The birds frequently get
caught in baited fishing lines, resulting in 100,000 deaths a
year.
•The idiom “having an albatross around your neck" is attributed
to the poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge. In the poem, a sailor brings bad luck to his ship and
crew after shooting an albatross. When the ship loses wind near
the equator and runs out of water, he’s forced to wear the dead
bird around his neck as punishment.
HTML http://www.wisegeek.com/which-bird-can-glide-the-farthest.htm
[center]
HTML http://s3.amazonaws.com/mongabay/charts/iucn-birds-albatrosses.jpg[/center]
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