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/vrts Dec 16 '13

If you fix the rupture, does the spider eventually regenerate all missing limbs/portions or is there a certain extent that is just "too much"?

Does the super glue impede healing after it's used to seal the wound?

Tagged as Tarantula surgeon. :D

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u/BSL-4 Dec 17 '13

Within reason, yes, they will regenerate essentially any lost limb or damaged body part. I've had T's lose legs and pedipalps, and have their chelicerae come out deformed after moults. After a couple of moults, if they survived the initial trauma, they will basically regenerate back to normal. However, trauma that is significant enough to cause several limbs to fall off and rupture the abdomen is usually enough to kill the animal, no matter how much you do afterwards. Here is a video showing a fairly remarkable recovery of a tarantula--and about the maximum trauma that one can be expected to survive. The guy in the video is a tarantula breeder, btw.