Here we explain how flapping micro air vehicles (MAVs) can be designed at different scales, from bird to insect size. The common believe is that micro fixed wing airplanes and helicopters outperform MAVs at bird scale, but become inferior to flapping MAVs at the scale of insects as small as fruit flies. Here we present our experience with designing and building micro flapping air vehicles that ...

Globally plant species richness is a significant predictor of insect richness. Whether this is the result of insect diversity responding directly to plant diversity, or both groups responding in similar ways to extrinsic factors, has been much debated. Here we assess this relationship in the Cape Floristic Region (CFR), a biodiversity hotspot. The CFR has higher plant diversity than expected fr...

Flying insects are remarkably agile and robust. As they fly through cluttered natural environments, can demonstrate aggressive acrobatic maneuvers such as backflip, rapid escape, in-flight collision recovery. Current state-of-the-art subgram microaerial-vehicles (MAVs) predominately powered by rigid actuators piezoelectric ceramics, but have low fracture strength (120 MPa) failure strain (0.3%)...