These slo-mo videos of mosquitos in flight will soothe the fear out of you
If only mosquitos moved this slowly in real life, giving us ample time to smash or flick them before they took a juicy bite.
The video above shows a mosquito moving 667 times more slowly than normal. Scientists used eight high-speed cameras recording at 10,000 frames per second to capture the meticulous motions.
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Their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, describes the unique aerodynamic mechanisms that allow mosquitos to fly.
Richard Bomphrey, a biologist at the Royal Veterinary College in London, led the research. His team found that mosquitos' long, thin wings can beat rapidly for their size—at a frequency of around 800 hertz—with shallow strokes that are smaller than those in any other insect group.
Mosquitos' flying techniques suggest they evolved to operate "outside the usual bounds of kinematic patterns" that other insects use, though scientists aren't certain why that is. One thing is clear: Mosquitos just don't play by the rules.
