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The novel flight style that helps the smallest beetles to excel

2022.01.31

An international team of researchers describes in detail the mechanisms of the extraordinarily fast flight of the smallest free-living insects, beetles of the featherwing family (Ptiliidae). The team includes members and a student of Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia) and members of Skoltech (Russia), the University of Rostock (Germany), Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan), and Chiba University (Japan). The effort is spearheaded by Alexey Polilov, head of the Department of Entomology, Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University. The results of the study were published in the leading international scientific journal Nature.

a.pngFig1:The featherwing beetle Paratuposa placentis (Modified from Farisenkov et al. (2022))

Click here for the press release.

Title: Novel flight style and light wings boost flight performance of tiny beetles
Author: Sergey E. Farisenkov, Dmitry Kolomenskiy, Pyotr N. Petrov, Nadejda A. Lapina, Thomas Engels, Fritz-Olaf Lehmann, Ryo Onishi, Hao Liu, Alexey A. Polilov
Journal: Nature
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04303-7