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It's like that test of a book and a falling feather. If you release both at the same time and from the same height, you will notice that the book falls hard, while the feather falls slowly.
so its like they have parachutes (?)
yep.
Source: Hollow Knight
This has to do with fluid dynamics.
A cube with a side length of one meter and a weight of one ton, would If you double the length to two meters, weight eight tons.
So small insect bodys experience less force when hitting the ground, because of that.
So they take less fall damage in comparison to us.
but only very little.
firstly with less mass the impact of any fall is much weaker.
(force of impact = mass x speed change per unit of time)
so reducing weight is a very effective way to lessen impact.
but wait you may say :
force applied over a greater surface is experienced different than on a smaller one.. like a needle pricked in you at a certain force or that same force spread out over your body.
true.. but now we get to volume to skeleton numbers..
a tower floor need to support also all the floors above
if you upscale a human to 10x the size that human would break every bone in their body.. and certainly its legs just trying to stand if the boned would be proportionally the same as in our body.
-this larger human would need to have much thicker bones to end up with the same impact resistance as a smaller human.
this means a larger percentage of its mass would need to be bone leaving less for other tissues.
the reverse is also true... a human the size of an insect would need proportionally much less bone.
insects for their size have a lot of skeleton.. + their chitin outside skeleton also means tissues wont get hurt unless their skeleton fail
and thats all before factoring in air resistance that works stronger on the smaller bugs due a higher surface to mass ratio.
some do depending on factors. But usually insects are ironically small enough that wind can act as a buffer.
it's like if you fall from atop of the empire state building but with flaps. The wind will push you up a bit under right conditions
infact someone survived dying like that. They fell from a tall rooftop skyscraper but a gust of wind pushed them through a window a couple floors form the main floor or about hallway into an open window.
the other thing is insects have their skeleton on the OUTSIDE. Most do. So in essence it'd be like if you have armor on the outside and padding on the inside.
Unless they fall at a weird angle the exoskeleton protects it ALOT
if trees and other insects can't really harm it then a small fall shouldn't as much.
thats why a mouse can survive a fall from a skyscraper and walk away after that.
they just lack the mass to impact the ground.
its a gravity thing, not drag from air molecules.