Wacky insects... and I'm not screaming.

[kidling]

So we got surprised today by a big green bug on the outside of one of our 11th floor office windows.  I was wishing vimnelius was handy to identify it for me or that my cameraphone could actually photograph it with any accuracy.  We couldn't figure out how it got up that high.  Thanks to the joy of wikipedia, I was able to identify it (at least as reliably

Comments

Yay insects!

[vimnelius]

I've seen katydids around many a building, but never that high up. Some of them can fly, but there aren't a whole lot of plants to eat up there.

And fear not for its safety. The advantage of being on the small end of the cube-square law is that you can fall greater distances without getting injured, and even if it did fall, it could use its wings to glide down, even if it doesn't fly.

Re: Yay insects!

[nightbringer018]

Also according to wikipedia the terminal velocity is somewhere between 6-9 m/s depending on cross-sectional area (I'm sure the wings help quite a bit). At that speed it wouldn't hit very hard, especially if a 15-20 mph breeze didn't come along and throw it back into the air.

[rollick]

It probably got near the building and was blown upwards. They're gliders, so if it was riding the wind and got caught in a sharp gust up the side of the building, it could have gotten pretty high.

That said, I've been to the bar on the top of the John Hancock building, which is 96 floors up. Looking out the windows, you can see fat, large spiders building huge webs across the outside of the building. It was surprising to me that the spiders got that high… but thinking about it, it was more surprising that 96 floors up, they were catching enough insects to stay fed. So maybe there's a whole ecosystem of high-wire bugs.