Amazing high speed water-skiiing beetle

When a waterlily beetle (Galerucella nymphaeae) vanishes from the surface of a pond, it hasn’t just disappeared; it’s gone water-skiing at high speed – 0.5m/s, equivalent to a human traveling at around 500km/h. Flying along the surface on four legs, the beetles also generate ripples in the water as they bounce along the top of the water.

The abstract of the original research paper can be accessed at http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219...

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