How can ants/bugs fall like 20 times their own body height (dropping from a fence f.e.) and just walk away?

225 views

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

18 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

This is yet another consequence of the infamous “square-cube law”. The volume of a shape increases faster than the surface area of a shape as it gets bigger. So, insects have proportionally much more surface area than insides compared to a much larger animal. So they experience proportionally more air resistance than a larger animal. This means they can fall from heights and not fall fast enough to hurt themselves.

You are viewing 1 out of 18 answers, click here to view all answers.