WALKIN’ ON THE WATER

There are animals that live in the water, and others that live inside the actual surface layer. And then there are the bugs who travel on top. Why is it that a pin-brained insect can rip right by my kayak and get across the pond in seconds––sans boat and paddle? 

Water striders create one of my favorite images in nature: a dent in the water. If you think that’s ho-hum, go make a dent in some water and then rejoin us. A dent is aesthetically beautiful––the slope, the shadow. It also is beautiful physics. It’s fascinating to dissect how something can stay on top of the water: the weight of the beast pushes down through its feet; the determination of water molecules to stick together creates pressure upwards from the surface; and the insect's feet have a built-in tendency to repel water. A drop of oil is hydrophobic, and so are water strider feet.

Just standing there on the pond is a complex situation, but these fellows also move and pretty darn fast at that. Movement adds all kinds of new physics issues. Suppose you were lucky enough to have feet that repelled water, and you found yourself standing out there in my pond. Now what? If you start to move, I bet you sink. Not so the strider. His little feet create these whorls or vortices; the water is thrust backwards, and he is propelled forward.

This is all plenty cool enough for me, but it gets even cooler. You may remember looking at liquid in a test tube and noticing that it doesn’t meet the glass at a right angle; it slopes upwards a bit at the edge. The word meniscus is burbling up through your cerebral cortex right now, I bet. When the strider gets to the edge of the water, he faces a climb up a watery hill, but that’s a story for another day.

I am amazed at what it takes for a bug of negligible weight to stroll on my pond. Imagine my surprise when I learned about the Basilisk or Jesus Lizard who runs on the water. Or Pygmy Geckos. Check out the links below to see these beasts defy gravity.

By way of contrast, one lovely afternoon my husband and my kayak did a barrel roll in the pond, providing an excellent demonstration of the limits of surface tension.

To see the Basilisk––and believe me, you want to see this––check out this video:

http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=basilisks+lizards+walk+on+water

To see Pygmy Geckos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pimZMS-B4dQ

To see human guys trying to walk on water:

http://videogoneviral.com/2010/05/guys-who-walk-on-water/

EVERYTHING’S CLICKIN'

If you have to spend your youth as a wireworm, it’s only fair you get to be something terrific when you finally morph. Wireworms are not cuddly, not beautiful, not clever. In fact they are pests that take out the roots of crops and think pesticides are delicious. They are not popular. But when wireworms go through metamorphosis, they get to be the cool dudes. The athletes. They become the amazing click beetle.

I was sitting on the deck reading when I noticed a beetle who looked like a cartoon character––black, long and oval with two big white “eyes”––spots designed to look like scary eyes. Suddenly he popped into the air and flipped over.  Then he did it again. Turns out this is how these little fellows escape their enemies. Or, if they get stuck on their backs, they can flip back over. Why haven’t turtles thought of that?

Click beetles arch their backs by bending at a hinge, then snap back. There is a spiny projection  tucked against the underside of the bug and this sudden arching snaps the projection down, kind of like snapping down the legs on your ironing board. Then the projection continues around and is tucked into a groove on their underside of the next segment. All of this happens very quickly; it makes a loud click and launches the beetle into the air. This is no minor feat; they are popping up 10 or 12 times their own height.

Man, I wish I could do that.  Imagine if you were in a boring conversation at a party, and pop––you could flip up and away from the perpetrator of all things mundane and land across the room by the spinach dip. I'm just not sure I want a spiny projection in my thorax.

To see click beetles in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jXp9JAl7kU

LOFTS

You can be imprisoned when there are no walls.

You can be free in a confined space.

My loft is only 6’ by 8’. The dogs can’t get to me, and very few people are interested in scaling the ladder.

The loft is furnished with an old rocker from my dad’s garage, a railroad chair from my father-in-law’s depot in Billings, Montana, and a stack of thesauri.

The hooked rug is a portrait of my old dog, Obe (named for Old Blue Eyes.) Tacked on the wall is a birthday card I received from a neighbor who had no children, who loved to brush my long red hair. It says, “To my favorite 5-year-old on her birthday.” And lying along a beam is a pair of stilts my dad made in 1952 by chopping down two trees and nailing wooden triangles on them. I could walk all the way down the road to my aunt’s house on those stilts. I could do it really fast when my mother was beating a slice of liver into submission and calling it supper.

From the loft, I can look down through the shadows and shafts of sunlight in our house, through the angles of railings and beams. I can see across the meadow and pond, beyond the fields to the Black Diamond Road on the horizon.

The loft is wonderful for writing, wondering, or worrying. It’s the best place for composing a song, reading, or avoiding all of the above.

Maybe it’s the lack of oxygen at an altitude of 30-feet that helps one relax. Maybe it’s pretending you can’t hear the phone or the washer screaming that it’s finished its cycle.

Grownups who hide in the woodpile or make a clubhouse in the closet might gain a certain reputation. But call it a loft, and it’s okee-dokee, even here in Iowa County, Iowa.

Just don’t be playing any loud music up there during hunting season. (See post for February 10^th.)