LAUSR

Insects have evolved sophisticated reflexes to right themselves in mid-air. Their recovery mechanisms involve complex interactions among the physical senses, muscles, body, and wings, and they must obey the laws of flight. We sought to understand the key mechanisms involved in dragonfly righting reflexes and to develop physics-based models for understanding the control strategies of flight maneuvers. Using kinematic analyses, physical modeling, and three-dimensional flight simulations, we found that a dragonfly uses left-right wing pitch asymmetry to roll its body 180 degrees to recover from falling upside down in ~200 milliseconds. Experiments of dragonflies with blocked vision further revealed that this rolling maneuver is initiated by their ocelli and compound eyes. These results suggest a pathway from the dragonfly’s visual system to the muscles regulating wing pitch that underly the recovery. The methods developed here offer quantitative tools for inferring insects’ internal actions from their acrobatics, and are applicable to a broad class of natural and robotic flying systems. Description Following formidable flyers Flying involves complicated maneuvers, not the least of which is the process of returning to an upright flying position after being flipped over in midair. Wang et al. used a combination of experiments and biophysical models to understand this process in dragonflies, which are adept insect flyers. The authors reveal that righting involves a series of signals beginning with the visual system through to wing pitch muscles. This approach revealed connections between neural signals and physical processes that could be used to study flight mechanics across species. —SNV Dragonfly righting during flight is a complex process involving both vision and muscular pitch.