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#flappingFlight

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Nicole Sharp<p><strong>Flying Foxes</strong></p><p>A sweltering day in India brought out the local giant fruit bats (also called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_flying_fox" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Indian flying foxes</a>) to keep cool in the river. Normally nocturnal, they made a rare daytime appearance to beat the heat. Wildlife photographer Hardik Shelat was lucky enough to catch these awesome images of the bats in flight. True to their name, the animals have wingspans ranging from 1.2 to 1.5 meters, which should give them some impressive lift, even when gliding down near the water. (Image credit: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hardik_shelat_photography/?hl=en" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">H. Shelat</a>; via <a href="https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/06/hardik-shelat-flying-foxes/?__readwiseLocation=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Colossal</a>)</p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/bats/" target="_blank">#bats</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/biology/" target="_blank">#biology</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/flapping-flight/" target="_blank">#flappingFlight</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/fluid-dynamics/" target="_blank">#fluidDynamics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/gliding/" target="_blank">#gliding</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/physics/" target="_blank">#physics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/science/" target="_blank">#science</a></p>
Nicole Sharp<p><strong>Tracking Insects in Flight</strong></p> <p><a class="" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/wp-content/uploads/flight_track1.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a></p> <p><a class="" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/wp-content/uploads/flight_track2.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a></p> <p><a class="" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/wp-content/uploads/flight_track3.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a></p> <p></p> <p>Insects are masters of a challenging flight regime; their agility, stability, and control far outstrip anything we’ve built at their size. But to even understand how they accomplish this, researchers must manage to capture those maneuvers in the first place. Insects don’t stay in one small area, which is what the typical fixed camera motion capture set-up requires. Instead, one group of researchers has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.adm7689" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">designed a system</a> with a moveable mirror that tracks an insect’s motion in real-time, ensuring that the camera stays fixed on the insect even as it traverses a room or — for the drone-mounted version — a field. </p><p>Real-time motion tracking means that researchers can better capture detailed footage of the insect’s maneuvers in a lab environment, or they can head into the field to follow insects in the wild. Imagine tracking individual pollinators through a full day of gathering or watching how a bumblebee responds to getting hit by a raindrop mid-flight. (Video and image credit: Science; research credit: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.adm7689" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">T. Vo-Doan et al.</a>)</p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/biology/" target="_blank">#biology</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/flapping-flight/" target="_blank">#flappingFlight</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/fluid-dynamics/" target="_blank">#fluidDynamics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/insect-flight/" target="_blank">#insectFlight</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/physics/" target="_blank">#physics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/science/" target="_blank">#science</a></p>