Hovering by Flying Animals: How Often Did Quetzalcoatlus northropi, the Largest Pterosaur, Flap Its Wings?

• Scott A. Lee ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Toledo

     University of Toledo

     City of Toledo, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 63, Nº. 9, 2025, págs. 749-751
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • A full understanding of winged flight is challenging due to its inherent nonlinearity. The forces involved in flight are created by flapping as well as the fluid dynamical forces due to circulation around the wing. These forces depend on vortices created by this motion and are well beyond the purview of an introductory physics course. However, the simpler case of a winged animal hovering in the air can be analyzed via Newtonian mechanics. This activity extends earlier work in this area.1–4 Dimensional analysis (an important tool for every student) is used to cast the equation for the wing beat frequency of a hovering animal in terms of readily measured parameters. Analyzing the hovering of 409 extant animals (birds, bats, and insects) shows the validity of this equation, which is then applied to Quetzalcoatlus northropi, the largest flying animal to ever live, and Meganeurites gracilipes, the largest insect to ever live.