Fastest Flyers
Zoom! The gold medal in speed flying goes to desert locusts, which can fly at about 21 mph. The corn earworm moths came in close second at 17 mph. (Airspeed, not to be confused with ground speed, is the speed relative to air, which may also be moving.) A second runner-up was not identified.
But fans of other speedy flyers, like the deer botfly, shouldn't despair. These records may molt away: "Many insects surely fly faster, but their airspeeds have yet to be studied with modern methods," wrote T.J. Dean in the Book of Insect Records.
Scientists use multiple methods to measure how fast insects fly, including stopwatches, wind tunnels, flight mills, cameras, Doppler radar, thermal imaging and radio frequency identification. Comparing results acquired using different measuring tools is difficult. Plus, insect airspeed is also sensitive to just about anything: an insect's mass, size, age, gender, how much food and water it's had, ambient temperature, humidity, solar radiation, wind, oxygen levels, whether it lives in the wild or in a lab, and the angle at which it's flying.
Until all flying insects are measured under the same conditions, there may not be a definitive winner.
Images: Top: Desert locust, Christiaan Kooyman / Wikimedia Commons. Right: Earworm moth, Wikimedia Commons.