A human falling down from three times their own height (six metres or so) would be horribly injured, while bugs seem to just walk on. How does this work? Shouldn’t they be falling at a similar speed, due to gravity?
In: 2
Two reasons.
First, they don’t fall at a similar speed, they fall much much slower. Their “terminal velocity” is much slower. This is because they are very very very light, and they have a lot of surface area – lots of legs and appendages that cause drag. Because they are so light and cause so much drag. Air resistance alone is enough to slow down their fall to a survivable speed. It’s pretty much impossible for an ant to die from falling.
Second, their exoskeleton. Ants all basically have their own Spartan-Super-Suit like Master Chief that keeps them solidly in place, no organs splattering around because the organs are kept nicely in place by their strong exoskeleton.
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