February 29 2008 / by alexakesson
Category: Biotechnology Year: General Rating: 7
Useful, maybe,..........
When bats flap their wings downward they created tiny air
cyclones above the wings called a leading vortex which pulls the
animal upward and allows them to hover in place without expending
nearly as much energy as simply flapping their wings.
Without this trick they would not have the strength to hover in
place in order to feed as the vortex provides as much as 40 percent
of the lift force which keeps the bats in the air.
The bats used the thumbs and fingers embedded in the skin
membrane of their flexible wings much like flaps on an airplane to
alter the curve of the wing and create the lift force necessary to
hover.
“To be able to generate these vortexes they need this exquisite
control of their wing surface and it’s a really delicate thing to
control the stability of this vortex,” said lead author Anders
Hedenström of Lund University.
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