Entomology Commons^™

Kinematic Analysis Of Axial Rotations And The Effects Of Stress Selection On Takeoff Flight Performance, Michael L. Brewer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The importance of flying insects cannot be understated; without them as pollinators, the great diversity of flowing plants could not have occurred. Flight requires a suite of highly derived morphological and physiological characteristics that may limit the evolutionary responses of other life history traits.

To investigate the complexities of maneuvering flight, I used high-speed videography to analyze wing and body motions in the HoverflySyritta pipiens(Order: Diptera) during horizontal turns called saccades. I characterized the saccades by calculating the instantaneous rotational velocities throughout the saccade, maximum rotational velocity, and the mean rotational velocity. I then compared the shape of the rotational …