I released a spider today and after launching it from about six feet up, which was about 72 times its height, I started to wonder about this.
EDIT: Took out a typo. I didn’t think anybody would care or notice but you know, Reddit.
In: Biology
There’s a thing where the only way to kill a squirrel by dropping it is to literally drop it from so high up that it starves to death before it hits the ground.
There are some incorrect answers here because some commenters didn’t the question. OP did **not** ask **whether** bugs are damaged by falling, they asked at what point they **are** damaged by falling.
This means OP isn’t looking for a practical answer (because typically they aren’t damaged,) but for a theoretical answer.
And that answer is, when they fall a long enough distance in a vaccuum onto a hard enough surface. The damage done to an object when it lands at the end of a fall depends on how sturdy the object is and how quickly its speed changes. If you take a particular bug falling in air at terminal velocity, the only other factor is the amount of springiness there is to the surface it falls on. Drop it onto a soft cushion and it won’t be harmed. Even rocks will give a little, but not as much, so a bug landing on a rock might be hurt.
There is a caveat that the bug might have a cushion of air slowing it down right before it lands – depending on the shape of the bug it still might not be hurt. Now let’s remove that cushion by having the bug fall in a vaccuum. Then, there is also no terminal velocity, so as long as it has time to accellerate, the bug can fall faster. Even a short fall can now kill the bug, if it lands on a solid enough surface, and if it has survived being in a vaccuum.
I mean, that’s the kind of thing one should worry about **before** you yeet the poor guy off of the ledge!
there is a great video explaining and answering your question.
I just woke up and misread the question. I thought it said “at what point” as in how big until a bug starts taking damage
Small bugs have a huge amount of surface area relative to their weight, which gives them a lot of air resistance. This means that as they fall, the air is pushing back up on them to slow them down, and it slows them down so much that they can’t get hurt from falling any distance. It’s like having their own built-in parachute.
They’re too small.
As mass/volume of an object changes, its material strength does not change in the some proportion. If you double the size of an animal, its strength would not also double, because there’s more of it to move around. This is one application of the square-cube law
As people already pointed out, it’s about the terminal velocity.
So the better question would be:
How heavy should a small bug be to take damage from falling?
If you dropped a feather from a skyscraper, it wouldn’t fall any faster or hit the ground any harder. Every object has a certain amount of “lateral surface area” which creates drag via the air below/around it. A barbell or rock is dense and the air flows right around it. Bugs, on the other hand, have lots of legs, hairs, wings, shells, and other things to slow them down. Combine that with their relatively lower density and low weight overall, they are susceptible to air and wind currents much more than a human or a heavy object.
I have an additional question on this topic:
What would happen if you dropped an insect from a great height, but in a total vaccuum, like those huge vaccuum hangars for space research?
Ignoring the pressure effects on the insect’s physiology, the fall would kill it, as its terminal veloocity is now infinite, right?
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