If walking on water takes grace, jumping on it requires exquisite care.
Water striders spend most of their lives on a water surface, typically that of a pond. Microscopic hairs, coated with a waxy substance, make the striders’ long legs extremely water-repellent, enabling the bugs to rest on water as if the surface were a rubber membrane.
As the name implies, water striders are also accomplished at water walking—more like skating. Scientists know that water striders propel themselves by creating vortices under the water’s surface, similar to how birds fly by creating vortices in air. But what has been puzzling is that water striders also manage to jump, says Ho-Young Kim, an applied physicist at Seoul National University in South Korea.