Beetle walking upside down under water surface filmed in Australia | Hacker News Reader

Beetle walking upside down under water surface filmed in Australia

theguardian.com

199 pointsnamu-31340 comments

I vaguely remember there's a science fiction story about an underwater civilization where the buoyant force servers like gravity for us. Since the force points outwards, for that civilization, the planet is "up above" their head and the space is "down below".

That’s such a great idea for a story, especially if you start thinking about the size of the oceans, connecting to inland lakes via river networks, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs00QjiJZQ

This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

Down and Out by Ken Wharton?

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2017/02/science-fi...

http://compellingsciencefiction.com/stories/downandout.html

Surface Tension by James Blish?

What a humourus coincidence that it was in Australia the upside-down walking beetle was found.

I bet his toilet flushes the other way too!!

It does! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXaad0rsV38

Upside-down beatles down under.

Perhaps this species was brought there from US and struggled to adapt. Or rather adapted in its own way.

Aussies are walking upside-down, not the beetle.

There are other insects (and common outside Australia) that do this: Specifically, water boatmen which live underwater and have little legs that they use to push themselves around with. This includes the "lesser boatman", Corixidae and Pleidae, and the "greater boatman", Notonectidae.

In particular, Notonecta glauca (or common backswimmer) swims on its back and will walk under the water surface searching for prey: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Lateral-view-on-the-wate....

Notonecta glauca is my favourite animal. It is a fearsome predator that can swim, walk and fly. Also, one of the few animals that can take-off from underwater!

A beetle? In my aquarium I have snails walking upside down under the water surface!

Do they do this when you put food in the tank? Funny you mention it because I just noticed my snails doing this the other day… it sounds weird but I have engineers come to my house just to see it because they don’t believe it

Do you have video?

Is pretty cool to see and all you need is a lamp. Aquatic snails walk under the surface all night. Some fishes vacuum the surface clinging upside down also.

Just to clarify: are your snails walking on the water-air surface upside down? Or they are underwater but clinging to some surface other than the water-air one?

Assuming it is the first, do they breach the surface tension?

They cling to the water surface alone. They cling, they don't "stand" on it. Their whole shell and body is inside the water, and the shell hangs from the body, which is firmly attached to the surface. If I disturb the surface they fall to the bottom.

This is a very common behaviour of pond snails. Just search "snail water surface" on google to see many pictures of it.

The beetle seems to do the opposite thing, though. It is buoyant so it floats to the surface, on which it stands and walks with its legs as it would do on the ground. The air\surface interface is very strong for small critters.

Thank you very much for the explanation. I didn’t know about this. Super exciting.

For others who might be interested I found this video showing the behaviour: https://youtu.be/hOLbyAzLmbQ

> The beetle seems to do the opposite thing, though.

Why is it the opposite? From the description it seems exactly the same.

From the point of view of the beetle, he's not walking upside down. Physical forces attract him to the "ground" (the underside of the water surfaces) and he just walks normally, as if he was affected by gravity instead of buoyancy.

The snail is definitely "upside down", for the physical force (gravity) wants to separate her from the "ceiling" on which she clings.

Aha, I get it, interesting point.

Snails dont have legs or limbs. And "walking" is a legged gait.

Limbless loco is a seperate story -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_locomotion#Limbl...

Snails are pretty cool though with their mucus turning everyting around them friction free so they are badically ice skating. Have no clue what happens in water though.

I'd believe that they could hang upside down with their feet at the surface. I wouldn't believe that they could actually propel themselves across the surface; any movement would be due to water currents.

They definitely propel themselves. Even if I stop the filter so that there's no water circulation, they can walk on the surface just as fast as they do on the glass (which is quite slow, but still).

Think about it: water striders propel themselves quite fast on the surface of water, from the other side. The air/water interface is a though barrier to break for small beings. Thus they can use it for support, from either side.

Australia is the most appropriate place for such findings.

Down under, really?

How is this a story. I've seen this myself.

Maybe a lot of upvotes have not witnessed this themselves.

Not everything is going to be a new thing just for you. Don't you find it a little comforting that other people are now becoming aware that beetles are able to do this?

Yeah but the article says this is the first time it’s been recorded.

I believe there is some emerging friction between academically authenticated knowledge and that observed by mere “amateurs.”

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/20/1006352654/enthusiastic-amate...

And see villager observations here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/science/moray-eels-eat-la...

Agreed. I don't understand why they are making such a fuss about this. It seems trivial and expected, and is not an uncommon site (if you like looking into ponds like me).

Yep, aquatic beetles are able to do this, and snails do it all the time. Is a well known fact.

right? I think I saw it myself and I'm not around water that much

as it walking using surface tension it is somewhat like a space worker using magnet boots.

We noticed a month ago a few water snails crawling upside down the water surface.

This reminded me about "How can the Bumblebee fly even though it's not aerodynamically capable of doing so? Because no one told it about this limitation". Upon some search, for an accurate quote, I learned that this is a myth, and that Bumblebee flight does not violate the laws of physics [0]

[0] http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/08/bumblebee-fl...

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