Amazing slow motion video of insects captured at 3,200fps

Adrian Smith is the head of Evolutionary Biology & Behavior Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and an Assistant Research Professor at North Carolina State University. Recently, he shared amazing super slow-motion footage of insects flying, all captured at 3,200 frames per second. The video, shared on his YouTube channel, Ant Lab, saw Smith deliberately avoiding the “stereotypical” footage so commonly available in the public domain of bees, butterflies, and common flies. Instead, he decided to focus on “the weird stuff”, capturing the flight of insects, to his knowledge, which have never been captured in slow motion before.

Check out the stunning video below, and fast-forward to see the insects you’re particularly interested in – timestamps attached. Besides the incredible footage, Smith also shares his research on insect flight and how it might have evolved, as well as explaining why and how the flying styles between the various insects differs.

• plume moth – 01:17
• firefly – 01:20
• painted lichen moth – 02:32
• leafroller moth – 03:14
• rosy maple moth – 03:31
• common stonefly – 04:00
• mayflies – 05:14
• fishfly – 06:07
• aphid – 07:00
• scorpionfly – 07:42
• lacewing – 08:10

To see some of Smith's still photography head to his website, follow this link to check out his slow-motion video of ants injecting venom at 1,000fps, or visit his YouTube channel.

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