Origami - Ladybug style :)

Ladybugs, one of yours truly's favorite insects, possess a secret, how do they fold their large wings under a wonderfully colored top wing,  called the elytra, in only a tenth of a second. And when it lands, it folds it back in just two. Switching between flying and crawling many times in a day, the ladybug travels vast distances.

This has been a fascinating mystery until now.

To the naked eye, this elegant transformation is a mystery. But scientists in Japan created a window into the process in a study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Just how the ladybug manages to cram these rigid structures into tiny spaces is a valuable lesson for engineers designing deployable structures like umbrellas and satellites.

A ladybug’s hind wings are sturdy enough to keep it in the air for up to two hours and enable it to reach speeds up to 37 miles an hour and altitudes as high as three vertically stacked Empire State Buildings. Yet they fold away with ease. These seemingly contradictory attributes perplexed Kazuya Saito, an aerospace engineer at the University of Tokyo and the lead author of the study.

Read on to see how this remarkable insect does the deed with elegance & grace as this points out yet again, nature never disappoints. :)

Addendum: Here's the origami part.

The process by which the wings collapse is akin to origami — in fact, the scientists used origami paper to recreate portions of the wing folds.

Scientists created a paper model showing how one part of a ladybug's wing folds up when the wing is tucked away out of use.

And the wings remain stable when expanded partly because of veins that use "tape springs" — the kind of curve that allows carpenter tape to hold itself straight.

Nature finds a way, always. :)