Why do insects when they fall from high places do not break any body parts???
822408
insects have an ectoskeleton, it's on the outside.  It's like armour.  Now imagine if they were the size of humans, it would be very easy for them to take over the world.  They'd be unstoppable!
381807
Slippery floors and muscle spasms... read on:\n\n\n"Q6: Why do cockroaches die on their backs?\n\nA:  First, few cockroaches die on their backs in the wild.  Natural death of cockroaches probably occurs in the stomach of a bird, bat or other small animal.\nSecond, Cockroaches are not used to living on a polished marble or vinyl floor.  They are more used to a ruguous living plane including leaves and sticks and other vegetable debris.  Thus when a cockroach finds itself on its back (by some mistake in its orienteering) it may have trouble righting itself if there is not debris around to grab hold of with its legs.  (Try it, put a cockroach on its back on a polished floor with and without some crinkled paper.)\nThird, often we come across dead cockroaches in buildings that have died of insecticide.  Most of these insecticides are organophosphate nerve poisons.  The nerve poison often inhibits cholinesterase, an enzyme that breaks down acetyl choline (ACh), a neurotransmitter.  With extra ACh in the nervous system, the cockroach has muscular spasms which often result in the cockroach flipping on its back.  Without muscular coordination the cockroach cannot right itself and eventually dies in its upside down-position."\nfrom: http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach_faq.html#Q6\n\nHope that helps!
667234
I will be damned if I know, lol, but, I am about to- but hope to never need to use one:)\n\nParachutes work because of something called ‘air resistance.’ If there were no air resistance, then gravity would cause everything to fall at the same rate, so no matter what item you dropped (i.e. a feather or a rock), it would hit the ground at exactly the same time (assuming you dropped it from the same height). But air resistance complicates things (and makes sky-diving a lot more fun). Air resistance happens because as things fall, they have to push their way past the atoms and molecules that make up air in order to get where they’re going.\n\nFor something like a rock, this isn’t really a big deal, since rocks tend to be really heavy while being pretty small, so they can push the air molecules out of the way quite easily. But things like feathers can’t push the air molecules out of the way very well – for one, they weigh less so they don’t push as hard. And for another, they’re pretty big, so they run into a lot more air molecules than the rock does. So the air actually slows the feather down.\n\nThis is what makes parachute work. If a person were to fall without a parachute, they’d push the air molecules out of the way very easily, so the air wouldn’t be able to do much to slow the person down. But if the person is attached to a parachute, then the parachute will run into lots of air molecules, and especially if it’s curved to be higher up in the middle, it will be very hard for the air molecules to get out of the way. If they can’t get out of the way, they will slow the parachute (and hence the person) down. \n\nAnother way to put it:)\n\n    *  A parachute works to slow down someone or something from falling by creating “drag”.\n    * Drag is the push on something from air or water.\n    * Because air is much thinner than water it doesn’t have as much drag.\n    * The bigger something is – the larger it’s surface area the more drag it creates.\n    * That’s why a parachute works so well – it’s very light and it has a very big surface area. It catches lots of air in it as it falls so it creates lots of drag which slows it down as it falls. \n\nHope you are happy now, I am still NOT jumping out of an airplane, lol
710471
hmmm, good question....\n\nMaybe because it seems to be in a constant state of falling.
197808
Insects have an open circulatory system. This means that blood does not flow through blood vessels...to put it bluntly, it sort-of sloshes around in the insects body. This is not how they get oxygen though. To get oxygen from blood, you would have to have hemoglobin in the blood which carries oxygen, and insects do not have this (this is why, when you squish one, it is a clear, brownish color). Insects do get oxygen through little openings in their body called spiracles and the oxygen goes through those into tracheal tubes which go throughout the body to their body tissues.
174497
As above\nIn exoskeletons it is more difficult to regulate body temperature and they limit the size of the organism (No post-nuclear 20 foot tall ants, sorry).  \n\nExoskeletons also cause differences in support muscle/organ development.  For example, and endoskeleton is a frame and other organs are attached to it.  The outer skin is the only tissue requiring support from inside the body.  In an exoskeleton, the outer shell requires much more support to resist implosion (crushing the internal organs).  Some exoskeletons avoid this by being self supporting (rounded or spherical shaped for instance), but this leads to another problem.\n\nExoskeletons are heavier than endoskeletons.  Bone is the densest of all tissues.  Thus a human-sized exoskeleton organism (assuming it could exist) would weigh far more than and endoskeleton of the same size.  While it may have stronger muscles, these muscles would have to contend with keeping the exoskeleton supported.\n\nOnce breached, and the internal organisms of an exoskeleton are very vulnerable as there are no bones to absorb the damage. Exoskeletons would also be very difficult to mend, requiring bone grafts to replace damaged sections.  Bones also tend to shatter.  The mythical 20 ft ant would be very strong, barley able to move, and easy to kill with most rifles and shotguns, or any crushing force.  This is because any shock to the shell would cause fragments, or shrapnel, to peel off the inner shell and go flying through the creature due to the force of the shock, even if the shell was not penetrated.  In the Army, we call this effect "spall".  It would also be very difficult to repair the carapace after any fight.  You would have to break the shell in order to operate, thus causing much more damage.\n\nExoskeletons are not all bad (or else they would not exist).  Exoskeletons are very resistant to most "natural", or non-firearm, damage.  The organs, while easily damaged once the shell is broken, are usually well protected from normal wear and tear.  Vital organs are safe from most predators and competitors.  Endoskeleton creatures protect vital organs with the ribcage, but this is rarely enough to withstand the damage inflicted in a “fight to the death” with a similar sized creature (i.e. a mating fight).\n\nEndoskeletons offer greater size for the creature, greater mobility, easier "damage control", and a regenerative and breathable outer skin.\n\nThe cross-overs, like turtles or some dinosaurs with both endo and exoskeletons show the best, and worst, of both worlds.  A turtle's shell is self supporting, but limits mobility.  Damaging it also tends to kill the turtle.  It also limits the turtle's defenses as it can only attack (if it is a snapper) with its mouth.  Some dinosaurs (stegosaurus, ankylosaurus, and others) had this arrangement but were better defended and had longer legs, or a weaponized tail.\n\nThat's my first SWAG.  If I find more I will edit this.
626205
ok, it would freeze quickly (not explode-it is made of solids and liquids, which don't expand in vacuum). But for fun, assume it doesn't freeze or die of hypoxia.  Since there isn't any air, there is nothing for the wings to beat against, so it would flap it's wings and just stay in the same place- The motion of the wings might cause it to start rotating, though-so I would imagine the fly (which is a magic fly that doesn't dry up, freeze, or need oxygen) would just spin around in a tiny circle right where it is.
391682
because they don't fall from the sky. hahaha...ha..ha. ok no one's laughing at my joke
472788
actually that is a widely believed myth, they are able to jump. as for animals that can't jump, there are many: worms, sloths, turtles....
525903
True, ants are very light in weight, but in addition to this fact, water surfaces have a thin like layer that bonds because of the structure of water molecules. When divers dive, they have to "break the water" meaning that they have to break the molecule surface of a body of water in order to enter without getting hurt. Its this same surface that allows small insects such as ants to walk on top of water.
448071
Because of it's position. If it's vertical. it would fall faster. If it's horizontal, there is more space for the air to push it up. It would fall slower because air molecules pushes it up as the leaf pushes air down. Have you heard of "Action-Reaction". All objects exert force to one another. Hope that helps.
982728
I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a joke, but obviously a mouse has far more chance of walking away from such a fall.  A hippo would probably explode upon impact.  There are several reasons why this is, the first being that the mouse, having a high surface-to-weight ratio, will have a slower terminal velocity than the hippo. There's also the survivability of the impact itself, and, once again, a small mouse is quite strong relative to its own size than a hippo, the same reason why ants are able to carry enormous loads relative to their size.  A hippo would never stand a chance.
773547
This is because they were desinged to be able to take off and stay suspended in air while moving foward. if they all oversudden moved reverse they would crash since the wouldnt be able to force themselves up due to their bodies desing.\nMake a paper plane then throw it foward. then try throwin it rear facing front (infact it will turn up then crash down due to the resistance of air to the bodys movement)
436972
by killing insects, it disrupts the foodchain at a low level, affecting everything above it. also, any good things the insects might have done, like pollinating plants etc will be stopped.
746078
What is the difference between a travios and a brand new prius car? They both are transportation, but what difference. YOU are saying none of those structures would help the beetle in bombarding, but talk to an entomologist and he will explain how this marvel evolved. Think of the eye, in it's" perfection", yet extant in the world are all sorts of eyes that " are structures that exists separately " and are in various percentage stages that are are any where from 5% of an eye to the full human, bird and octopus eye. So we know it does work. I am too tired to go on tonight, so I hope this question attracts more responses.
6433
The legs of a fly have a primary role of helping the fly to land and lift off, and also move about a little when its not flying. If the fly would not have wings, it would be able to move futher on its legs, but the mobility would be severly restricted because the legs haven't been used in that sense before. This fact is confirmed from experimentation done in around 2003, where a genetically mutated fly which didn't grow any wings tried to move solely on its legs.
857222
Hmmm...wow...a VERY general question.  This is out of my field, but your other questions were so engaging I decided to see what else you have asked...\n\nFor the first one (how do they thrive/what modifications do they have). I am going to list things insects all have in common and that kill them when things go wrong with these systems:\nQ1:\n1) A chitinous exoskeleton, usually with a waxy covering that conserves water and provides mechanical protection.\n2) A system of spicules that enables oxygen/CO2 exchange without having to resort to an overly flexible out membrane keeping that mechanical protection sound. \n3) Segmented bodies and legs to allow greater flexibility of movement than is achievable solely with a segmented exoskeleton\n4) Wings for flight or additional mechanical protection\n5) Rudimentary circulatory system (this one might not qualify since I bet their ancestors had something like this too.)\n\nQ2:\nThere are a LOT of kinds of neoptera and I don't know much evolutionary biology so I will not attempt that one. Probably one trend has to do with the falling partial pressure of oxygen over the past few hundred million years and the guys getting smaller to cope. They all have flexible wings.  I dunno what else.  Sorry.\n\nQ3:  Compare flies to butterflies/moths/skippers.\nCommonalities: all 4 wings have flight function; larval stage that pupates; adults have tubular mouth parts\nDifferences:  antenna, scaled wings. \nThat is a start anyway. \n\nQ4:  Similarities: Chitinous exoskeletons, segmented bodies (but different numbers of segments), jointed legs, \nDifferences: wings vs. more legs, compound vs. simple eyes, pupation/metamorphosis vs. nymphal stages\n\nQ5:  Ecto means outside, and everyone know what parasitic means, so this would include lice, fleas, maybe mosquitos (they only suck blood for egg laying, you know), certain kinds of flies and true bugs.  They mostly live on blood, but I think some eat dead skin.  Geez, what else CAN you eat living on the outside of a critter?\n\nWhew.  Tough.