Post #428923 · Elektrine

2025-10-18 21:50 UTC

A ladybird beetle spreading its wings captured with a high-speed camera. In real-time wing deployment from the fully folded state takes less than 0.1 seconds. Video credit: University of Tokyo / Saito et al. &#39;Investigation of hindwing folding in ladybird beetles.&#39; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1620612114. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1620612114 #nature #photography #science

Replies (5)

@TheSecondVariation@graz.social 2025-10-18 21:52

@wonderofscience@mastodon.social I would be interested in the folding back process again.

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@martin1975@mast.eu.org 2025-10-18 22:03

@wonderofscience@mastodon.social @pbeyssac@bird.makeup Cette vidéo ne s'affiche pas sur mast.eu.org, alors qu'elle est pleinement fonctionnelle sur le serveur d'origine.

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@juliank@mastodon.social 2025-10-18 22:16

Are you Team Asterix, Team Obelix, or Team Idefix? Or ... Team Ceasar?

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@Iveyline@mastodon.social 2025-10-19 05:26

@wonderofscience@mastodon.social Beautiful

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@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot 2025-10-19 07:11

@wonderofscience@mastodon.social the folding of beetle wings fascinates me. I assume it's done by pumping fluids in and out of vascular canals in the wings, but the deployment part is easy. Engineering the wings so that they will fold neatly to fit precisely under the (much smaller) wing cases strikes me as a much harder problem. And yet all the species of beetle, with all their differently shaped wing cases, do it apparently reliably. Evolution is astonishing!

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