Soaring flight

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Soaring flight of the hummingbirds
Broad-tailed hummingbird ( Selasphorus platycercus ) soaring

The soaring flight is a type of flight in which both wing beats generate lift. To do this, the wing tips must describe a lying figure eight, the leading edge of the wing always pointing in the direction of flapping and thus lift can be generated when the wing is down and up . The wing beats must be very quick.

Animals that fly hovering can not only stand in the air like a helicopter , but are also able to fly in all directions, including backwards. It is important for optical orientation to level the head very precisely.

Animal groups

The soaring flight is mastered by representatives of several groups of animals capable of flying:

Some animals only show their soaring flight during courtship (e.g. the sack- winged bat or the blue-winged dragonfly ).

Pigeon tails searching for nectar on butterfly lilacs (film duration 41 s; the speed of the film is true to the original).

Flight parameters

The flight frequency of hummingbirds in hovering flight is about 40 to 50 Hertz (beats per second), that of the pigeon tail about 70 to 90 Hertz, hoverflies up to 300 Hertz. The frequency of the hymenoptera cannot be controlled by the nerves, but it is usually constantly sufficiently high.

Hummingbirds get about 75% of their lift from downward flapping wings and about 25% from upward flapping.

The cruising speed of hummingbird is one of the highest in the vertebrates , which is about ten centimeters Anna hummingbirds reach their Balzflügen shortly speeds of 27.3 m / s and 98 km / h with acceleration values of approximately ten times the acceleration due to gravity , on average, are 40 50 km / h reached. The flight speed of the pigeon tail is up to 80 km / h.

Coevolution

Some plants anatomically adapted to the buoyancy of their pollinators ( coevolution ). Special adaptations to birds (here: buzzing hummingbirds) are called ornithophilia , adaptations to butterflies (e.g. to the swallowtail) are called lepidopterophilia .

analysis

In direct observation it is not possible for the human eye to differentiate the high frequencies of the flapping of the wing, the human eye can distinguish a maximum of around 16 images per second . Frequencies of 40 to 90 wing beats per second pose a major challenge even for cameras . High-speed cameras can also record the wing movements of the pigeon's tail.

For the analysis and measurement of buoyancy, trained hummingbirds were filmed in a chamber with helium-filled soap bubbles, and the movement of the air bubbles was analyzed.

literature

  • CP Ellington: The aerodynamics of hovering insect flight. I. The quasi-steady analysis. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 305, No. 1122, February 24, 1984, pp. 1-15, doi: 10.1098 / rstb.1984.0049 .
  • CP Ellington: The Aerodynamics of hovering insect flight. II. Morphological parameters. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 305, No. 1122, February 24, 1984, doi: 10.1098 / rstb.1984.0050 .
  • CP Ellington: The Aerodynamics of hovering insect flight. III. Kinematics. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 305, No. 1122, February 24, 1984, doi: 10.1098 / rstb.1984.0051 .
  • CP Ellington: The Aerodynamics of hovering insect flight. IV. Aerodynamic mechanisms. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 305, No. 1122, February 24, 1984, doi: 10.1098 / rstb.1984.0052 .
  • CP Ellington: The Aerodynamics of hovering insect flight. V. A vortex theory. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 305, No. 1122, February 24, 1984, only in PDF format, doi: 10.1098 / rstb.1984.0053 .
  • CP Ellington: The Aerodynamics of hovering insect flight. VI. Lift and power requirements. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 305, No. 1122, February 24, 1984, doi: 10.1098 / rstb.1984.0054 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c J. MV Rayner: Dynamics of vortex wakes of flying and swimming vertebrates. In: J. Exp. Biol. 49, 1995, pp. 131-155.
  2. ↑ DR Warrick, BW Tobalske, DR Powers: Aerodynamics of the hovering hummingbird . In: Nature 435, 2005, pp. 1094-1097 doi: 10.1038 / nature03647 .
  3. ↑ Annika Bingmann: Schwirrflug as a hunting strategy: Neotropical bats also find dormant insects in the undergrowth . Archived from the original on March 9, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved on March 17, 2013. Quoted from: I. Geipel, K. Kalo, EKV Kalko: Perception of silent and motionless prey on vegetation by echolocation in the gleaning bat Micronycteris microtis . In: Proc R Soc B . 280, 2013, p. 20122830. doi : 10.1098 / rspb.2012.2830 . PMC 3574334 (free full text). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-ulm.de
  4. ^ A b C. C. Voigt, O. von Helversen: Storage and display of odor by male Saccopteryx bilineata (Chiroptera, Emballonuridae) . In: Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology . 47, 1999, pp. 29-40.
  5. ^ UM Norberg: Hovering flight in the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca). In: Swimming and flying in nature . Springer US, 1975, pp. 869-881.
  6. ↑ Eric Simms: British warblers. New Naturalist Series, Collins, 1985, ISBN 0-00-219810-X , pp. 286, 310.
  7. ^ Douglas L. Altshuler, William B. Dickson, Jason T. Vance, Stephen P. Roberts, Michael H. Dickinson: Short-amplitude high-frequency wing strokes determine the aerodynamics of honeybee flight. In: PNAS 102, No. 50, 2005, pp. 18213-18218, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.0506590102 .
  8. ↑ Encyclopédie Larousse de la Nature . ISBN 2-03-152111-X
  9. ↑ Das Taubenschwänzchen ( Memento from June 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), Working Group Ornithology and Nature Conservation - AGON