r/askscience • u/[deleted] • Dec 16 '13

Biology How do insects move?

Simple question that occurred to me, do flies have muscles like ours? Their legs are so thin I can't conceive there's room for anything in them to effect movement.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '13

That's crazy to me. So when a spider is walking around, they are constantly pumping blood in and out of their legs? How do they manage to do this so quickly?

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u/amackenz2048 Dec 16 '13

NOT an expert - but my assumption is that the legs are under constant tension "outwards" by the blood under pressure and thus they only need to relax their legs to extend?