Comment on Which fly came first?
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 3 days agoWait a minute, do microorganisms that tracel in the air count as “flying”? Are there any microorganisms with mini “wings” that flap through the air? I remember a video where mayflies (I think that’s the name?) basically swim through the air, so I wonder how a microorganism will do…
Even if microbes don’t flap little wings, I would argue it still counts as flying as kites are described as flying and they don’t have any wings at all. You also fly in a hot air balloon, and that definitely doesn’t have any wings, it’s effectively floating in air, but we still call it flying. Therefore, microbes are the first flying thing (?)
TheMetaleek@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Depends on the scale. Really tiny microorganism living in the air do not fly, as in they have no active mecanism to physically interact with their environment to move in any way. They just follow the air currents at seemingly random (the exact word is brownian), kinf of like particles of dust that you see in a ray of light. It is not defined as flying and not studied as such