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Graduate student Ángela Sáenz leveraged the 17-yr periodical cicada Brood X event in 2021 to collaborate with Virginia Tech on wing hydraulics in these exceptional insects. As stated in Salcedo et al. (2023) in Scientific Reports, "insect wings must be flexible, light, and strong to allow dynamic behaviors such as flying, mating, and feeding." The team found that during ecdysis, cicadas pump ~16% of their body mass in hemolymph through wing veins to expand their folded wing pads. Fully expanded wings become even lighter than the wing pads, thus producing strong but lightweight wings in short order.
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