Apparently Mosquitoes Can Not Fly Through the Fog

The fact though heavy rain could not deter mosquitoes fly. Despite the rain that hit 50 times the mass of bodies, mosquitoes remain unaffected. However, such a modern aircraft, mosquitoes stopped flying when there is thick fog.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology presented their findings in a meeting of the Division of Ruid Dynamics, American Physical Society 65th, on 18-20 November 2012 at San Diego, USA. "The effect of the impact of the rain and fog of mosquitoes so different," says Andrew Dickerson, Georgia Tech researchers. "From the standpoint of mosquitoes, rain fall as we hit a small car. Particles fog, weighing 20 million times lighter than a mosquito, hit just like breadcrumbs. Fog for mosquitoes so it is roughly the same for men like rain."

To solve this puzzle, Dickerson and his partner, David Hu, using high-speed videography. They observed a decrease in the frequency of mosquito wings in thick fog. The power generated is strong enough to lift the mosquito, but failed to maintain an upright position needed to continue to fly.

It happened due to the impact of fog on the mechanisms controlling the main flying mosquito, called halteres. Small round structures on the rear wing is proportional to the droplet size mist and beat 400 times per minute, hitting thousands of drops of mist every second.

Although normally halteres anti-air collision repeatedly with fog particles 5 microns (0.005 millimeters) can interfere with flight control mosquitoes. "Halteres also can not detect their position properly and malfunctions, like windshield wipers that do not function well when it's raining so hard," said Dickerson. "This study shows that, like airplanes, insects can not fly when they can not detect surrounding." *** [LIVESCIENCE | TJANDRA | KORAN TEMPO 4061]

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