This Insect Drinks Your Milkshake
The New York Times
The froghopper has amazing powers of suction, scientists found. It also produces astonishing amounts of urine.
A meadow froghopper urinates so much that it could drown itself. Luckily, the insect Philaenus spumarius, which is approximately the size of a Tic Tac, has a butt catapult that regularly flicks its globules of liquid waste into the air and safely away from its body. “At this tiny, tiny scale, ballistics become really complicated,” said Philip G. D. Matthews, an associate professor of comparative physiology in the zoology department at the University of British Columbia. “But they can flick it away pretty far,” he said, clarifying that “pretty far” here means two to four inches. Among entomologists, the froghoppers’ urinary powers are well understood. But the insects’ suction abilities, which long confounded scientists, have turned out to be much more impressive, according to a paper on the meadow froghoppers’ feeding mechanisms published on Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.More Related News