Project Team
Students
Victoria Longenecker
Biological Engineering
Penn State Altoona
Faculty Mentors
Kofu Adu
Penn State Altoona
Department of Physics
Gary Weisel
Penn State Altoona
Department of Physics
Ramakrishnan Rajagopalan
Penn State University Park, Penn State DuBois
Materials Research Lab, Engineering
Project
Project Video
Project Abstract
For hundreds of millions of years, insects have acclimated to changing environmental conditions. Odonata insects are one of a few who can take flight in wet environments, through biological surfaces and structures involving super-hydrophobicity, aerodynamics, and even self-cleaning properties. Most insects, such as flies, bees, beetles, and moths, tend to be weighed down by the rain droplets, inhibiting their ability to take flight. Why can dragonflies fly in such conditions? Odonatan’s wing structures and hydrophobic characteristics assist their flying capabilities in the rain. We explored the unique properties of seven Odonata wings from Ghana. We used a vernier caliper to determine their average thickness and a Cary spectrometer to determine the absorption properties between the wavelength range 190 nm to 800nm (UV/vis). We observed strong absorption in the UV region with two distinct peaks near 200 nm and 278nm and low absorption between 400-800 nm (visible region). Further studies are underway to investigate the properties of the wings responsible for the high absorption in the UV region.
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