Butterfly Flight

“For years scientists have been attempting to understand what makes butterflies the masters of manoeuvrability at low speed—able to hover and fly backwards or sideways with apparently little effort,” says The Independent of London. Now researchers at Oxford University believe they have finally found the insect’s secret. Using a specially designed wind tunnel and wisps of smoke to reveal airflow, they observed red admiral butterflies in flight. As the insects flew to and from artificial flowers in the wind tunnel, they were monitored by high-speed digital cameras that recorded the airflow around their wings. The researchers discovered that “the fluttering of butterflies is not a random, erratic wandering, but results from the mastery of a wide array of aerodynamic mechanisms.” Scientists hope to use this knowledge to build remote-controlled aircraft with a wingspan of just a few inches [as small as ten centimeters]. Fitted with a camera, these could be flown into confined spaces as winged observers.