How do insects survive even after falling even 100 times their body heights?

Answer 1

What kills us in a fall is 2 things: Mass and acceleration. A heavy object hurling towards the Earth will have much more force behind it (assuming it has not reached terminal velocity, or the point at which air resistance=force of gravity) than a small object with no weight. Not taking air resistance into account, think about which hurts more-hitting yourself with a wooden bat or a plastic bat? They mass of the bigger, heavier object gives it far more inertia, so when it hits the ground, the force of gravity is like a big hand pushing down on it and splattering it all over the pavement. The mass of the smaller object is like a smaller, weaker hand pushing it down, and not having the strength to "hurt a fly".

Answer 2

It's all about their body mass, weight, strength vs gravity.
Insects have not only light mass per size,they are extremely strong limbed, built to handle abuse. As far as strenght consider how strong an ant is being able to live many times it's weight with out increasing it's body size or mass as a human would have to do to life it's weight once.
Many insects also can glide down or free fall much slower than any other creature as it's low density in weight, and winged build would aid iteven futher in faling safely.Insects such as grubs can fall out of a tree 50,100 high even if they look like a heavy round object it's all mucus, liquid, and light extroskeleton which prevenst it from danger.

Answer 3

It isn't falling that hurts, it is the stop at the end. When an object falls it accelrates at first but then reaches a terminal velocity. For a human bodt that is about 200 mph. Hit the concrete at that speed and you are history. Insects are so light compared to their surface area that they fall at only a few miles an hour. Therefore the stop at the end does not hurt nearly as much.

If they reached 200 mph the exoskeleton wouldn't help them.

Answer 4

Hi Bicubic ! This is Anup. Your question seems interesting. The weight of an insect is very small. When an insect falls from a height to ground it gets equal and opposite reaction from ground surface which is very small equal to it's weight. Some insects possesses tough shell on their body which resists shocks when they fall from a height to the ground.
I hope my answer satisfied your question.
For any other querries e-mail me at [e-mail].
May be I shall have better solutions to your problems.
Goodbye!!

Answer 5

Insects survive even after falling even 100 times their body height .
this can be answered with help of universal law of gravitation---
Let the mass of the earth and the insect be M and m.
Acc. to law of gravitation-
Force between the two objects is directly proportional to the product of their masses.
so, if the mass( of the ant) would be less the force of gravity would also be less.

Answer 6

Exoskeletons are probably the largest contributing factor. The other helpful thing is that they have relatively simple organs, and an open circulatory system (no arteries or veins, blood just washed over their organs), so bleeding isn't really a problem.

Answer 7

I wondered that after I threw a boxelder beetle against my wall like a million times, and he still survived. Anyway, I have no idea.

Answer 8

probably their terminal velocity is not very fast, given their shape and weight. By terminal velocity, I mean the maximum speed they attain when falling, due to air resistance.

Answer 9

normally insects have very small weight,,,,,,,,,, whenver they fall from large and huge heights,,,,,, normally their speed at which they fall on ground is very less due to their light weight,,,,,

Answer 10

well, they hardly have any body weight..so i guess it doesnt make any difference..i mean no bones to break..for them, it would be just a 'rough' landing..take an ant...for eg..it wont even feel anything when falling.