Characteristics of Water Strider Legs in Hydrodynamic Situations

Wei, Pal Jen; Yan, Shen; Lin, Jen Fin

doi:10.1021/la900185a

Cited by 22 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Unlike water striders (Wei et al, 2009), craneflies do not experience high hydrodynamic pressure from their leg strokes and thus may not require a dense type 'a' hair layer (Lafuma and Quere, 2003). It may be desirable for the most protruding hair layer (type 'a') of the cranefly legs to be less dense (up to 10 times more sparse) than that of water strider legs to increase droplet mobility.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-wetting wings and legs of the cranefly aided by fine structures of the cuticle

Watson

Cribb

et al. 2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYNon-wetting surfaces are imperative to the survival of terrestrial and semi-aquatic insects as they afford resistance to wetting by rain and other liquid surfaces that insects may encounter. Thus, there is an evolutionary pay-off for these insects to adopt hydrophobic technologies, especially on contacting surfaces such as legs and wings. The cranefly is a weak flier, with many species typically found in wet/moist environments where they lay eggs. Water droplets placed on this insect's wings will spontaneously roll off the surface. In addition, the insect can stand on water bodies without its legs penetrating the water surface. The legs and wings of this insect possess thousands of tiny hairs with intricate surface topographies comprising a series of ridges running longitudinally along the long axis of the hair fibre. Here we demonstrate that this fine hair structure enhances the ability of the hairs to resist penetration into water bodies. Supplementary material available online at

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-wetting wings and legs of the cranefly aided by fine structures of the cuticle

Watson

Cribb

et al. 2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…The Bond number of water striders' legs is approximately 1 × 10 −3 and that of the setae on those legs is approximately 1 × 10 −7 [9,37] figure 4. When sinking, the inside meniscus protrudes upward to balance the increased hydrostatic pressure; when lifting, the meniscus sags downward to resist lifting.…”

Section: Meniscus Shapesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhanced load-carrying capacity of hairy surfaces floating on water

Xue

Yuan

et al. 2014

Proc. R. Soc. A.

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Water repellency of hairy surfaces depends on the geometric arrangement of these hairs and enables different applications in both nature and engineering. We investigate the mechanism and optimization of a hairy surface floating on water to obtain its maximum load-carrying capacity by the free energy and force analyses. It is demonstrated that there is an optimum cylinder spacing, as a result of the compromise between the vertical capillary force and the gravity, so that the hairy surface has both high load-carrying capacity and mechanical stability. Our analysis makes it clear that the setae on water striders' legs or some insects' wings are in such an optimized geometry. Moreover, it is shown that surface hydrophobicity can further increase the capacity of a hairy surface with thick cylinders, while the influence is negligible when the cylinders are thin.

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“…Although studies of impact dynamics are natural in the context of insect locomotion on the surface of water (Bush & Hu 2006;Hu et al 2003Hu et al , 2007Wei et al 2009), relatively low-speed dynamics are more pertinent for other scenarios. For example, whether the heavy axisymmetric rafts studied by Abkarian et al (2013) sink as a whole or by forming a jet that then pinches off presumably depends, at least in part, on how fast sinking occurs.…”

Section: The Dynamics Of Sinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Floating Versus Sinking

Vella

2015

Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech.

115

138

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Small objects that are more dense than water may still float at the air-water interface because of surface tension. Whether this is possible depends not only on the density and size of the object, but also on its shape and surface properties, whether other objects are nearby, and how gently the object is placed at the interface. This review surveys recent work to quantify when objects can float and when they must sink. Much interest in this area has been driven by studies of the adaptations of water-walking insects to life at interfaces. I therefore discuss these results in the context of this and other applications.

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Characteristics of Water Strider Legs in Hydrodynamic Situations

Cited by 22 publications

References 15 publications

Non-wetting wings and legs of the cranefly aided by fine structures of the cuticle

Non-wetting wings and legs of the cranefly aided by fine structures of the cuticle

Enhanced load-carrying capacity of hairy surfaces floating on water

Floating Versus Sinking

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