Instantaneous streamlines show the airflow around a mosquito in flight…
…including a newly discovered mechanism that helps them to fly, the trailing-edge vortex.
From the study of mosquito flight in Nature:
Mosquitoes exhibit unusual wing kinematics; their long, slender wings flap at remarkably high frequencies for their size (>800 Hz) and with lower stroke amplitudes than any other insect group.
This shifts weight support away from the translation-dominated, aerodynamic mechanisms used by most insects, as well as by helicopters and aeroplanes, towards poorly understood rotational mechanisms that occur when pitching at the end of each half-stroke.
[Youtube]
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