We've updated our Privacy and Cookies Policy
We've made some important changes to our Privacy and Cookies Policy and we want you to know what this means for you and your data.
Insect shoots its WEE away at top speeds - meet the glassy-winged sharpshooter!
There are millions of different types of insects in the world today... but have you ever seen one wee?
Well one scientist was extremely surprised when he caught a bug doing a really spectacular wee in his back garden.
The glassy-winged sharpshooter, which looks a bit like a grasshopper, was weeing into a little ball on its bum and then flicking it so fast that scientist Saad Bhamla couldn't see it.
After lots of research on the insect he discovered that it was flicking its wee ten times faster than a sports car!
Image source, Georgia Institute of Technology
Scientist Saad Bhamla and colleague Elio Challita used super-slow-motion footage to analyse the speed of the wee being flicked and were surprised to find it used a technique called superpropulsion.
They had expected the wee to be travelling at the same speed as the body part which flicks it (they called it a butt flicker!).
But when they measured it, it was actually going faster than the butt flicker moved.
This means the body part is has evolved perfectly to flick the wee at the exact right moment for maximum speed, just like when you time a jump on a trampoline perfectly with someone else to get a super bounce.
Why do grassy-winged sharp shooters flick their wee?
Image source, Georgia Institute of Technology
It's an impressive wee flick, but scientists were confused as to why the insect had evolved to do this.
Other than being good fun, what's the point of flicking your wee?
The research team knew the insects didn't eat anything other than a liquid called Xylem which is very low in calories so they wondered why it was necessary to flick the wee so fast.
But they discovered that, because of the size of the insect, this strategy actually used less energy than weeing in a jet like most other insects (and humans!) do.
Why did they do so much research on a wee flicking insect?
Image source, Georgia Institute of Technology
It may seem like fun investigating wee flicking, and you might think it's not the best way to for adults to spend their time but researchers disagree.
They say by investigating this they've worked out some information which could be useful.
They say the flicking technique could be used by smartwatches to eject water from the system, or even be used to create tiny robots that jump with liquid springs.
Despite it being potentially useful, the scientists say wee flicking is only useful if you're an insect, so for us humans it's probably sticking to traditional methods.