These gliding ants are very cool, though it would appear that their glide ratio is pretty bad. Interesting that a bad glide ratio actually serves them pretty well in this case. When they want to get away from a predator, a quick (efficient) glide back to the tree wouldn't be all that great a tool, while a poor (very near falling) glide back to the tree that gets them further out of harms way, but still with a good shot at returning home, is just the ticket. The one in the video looks like about 1:30, (NOT 30:1) so a scale-sloper-RC-model-gliding-ant would need to be reserved for those really ballistic slope days.
Lift, Scobie in Seattle JVB wrote: I just read this interesting article on this species of ants that can glide. I thought I might share the link here... http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/02/09_ants.shtml Jim Downers Grove, IL Member of the Chicago SOAR club, AMA 592537 LSF 7560 Level IV ICQ: 6997780 AIM: InventorJim R/C Soaring blog at www.jimbacus.net RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
