As the title says, this came to my mind after flicking a seemingly frail leaf bug, only for it to fly right back onto my arm. I like to think that I have a strong flick so I’m curious as to how these insects survive such a force and keep moving as if it never happened considering humans are hundreds if not thousands times bigger than them.
In:
Because insects are structured in a fundamentally different way. Their exteriors are their skeletons. If you flicked a tiny human, the force would shear and crush their vital organs into paste. A bug however is more like a hollow rock filled with goo. If you flick it, odds are you will inflict only superficial damage, and zero internal damage.
This is generally how most creatures with exoskeletons work. It’s either a no sell attack or catastrophically fatal damage.
Smaller Creatures such as this leaf bug have a very high amount of surface area and much less gooey bits to actually take damage(concussive shearing force). When a human is struck their structure is warped, think of a slowmo video of force going through a body, this stretching and movement through soft tissue is what causes damage. Smaller creatures are less sensitive to the effects of force simply because they don’t take as much shear force because they simply don’t have as much mass. which means less stretching and warping.
A bug has the added benefit of having an external skeletons which spreads the force around easier(distributing the force over area). which reduces the amount of force that make it into the “gooey” bits. They still take some damage but not as much as, say a mammal of the same size with an internal skeleton..
Hope this helps, Feel free to ask for clarification.
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