A dragonfly rules the sky
QUESTION What’s the world’s fastest insect?
Dragonflies are the fastest flying insects. emperor dragonflies have been clocked travelling at speeds of 35mph. Hawk moths, at a speed of 33.7 mph, come in second.
on the ground, the fastest recorded insect is the australian tiger beetle
(Cicindela hudsoni), an aggressive predator that can move at 5.6 mph, covering 8ft in a second.
its close relative, another australian tiger beetle (Cicindela eburneola), is a close second at 4.2 mph.
However, it’s faster in terms of body length, a relative measure that allows inter-species comparison. it can travel 171 body lengths per second (bl/s).
recently, scientists discovered the world’s fastest ant. The saharan silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina) can travel at 1.1 mph, which equates to 108 bl/s.
The fastest creature in the animal kingdom isn’t an insect, but a mite — classified as an arachnid, along with spiders, scorpions, ticks and harvestmen. The Californian mite, Paratarsotomus
macropalpis, has been recorded travelling at 0.5mph. This may seem slow, but with a body length of 0.7mm, it equates to a record 322bl/s.
Usain Bolt, the 100m world record holder, may have a top speed of 27.3 mph, but this is a mere six bl/s. even the cheetah, which can achieve speeds of 70 mph, manages only 16 bl/s.
J. E. Heinz, Liverpool.
QUESTION Was Hillary Clinton named after Sir Edmund Hillary?
DUring a stop-over in nepal on a south asian goodwill tour in april 1995, U.s. first lady Hillary rodham Clinton met sir edmund Hillary.
Clinton told reporters she had been named after sir edmund. ‘so when i was born, she [her mother] called me Hillary and she always told me: “it’s because of sir edmund Hillary.” ’
Hillary with double ‘ll’ is more commonly a surname, with the girl’s name usually spelled with a single ‘l’. Her story was greeted with scepticism. The new Zealand mountaineer and Tenzing norgay were the first people to reach the summit of Mount everest in 1953 — when Hillary rodham was six.
Before this time, Hillary was a name in climbing circles, but it seems unlikely that Dorothy rodham, a Chicago housewife, would have heard of him.
Much more well-known than edmund Hillary in the U.s. in 1947 were the film actress Hillary Brooke and Cornell football and basketball star Hillary Chollet.
Perhaps the story was invented for political expediency, to be filed next to Hillary Clinton’s ‘misspeaking’ about flying into Bosnia under sniper fire in 1996.
Beth Coley, Aldeburgh, Suffolk.
QUESTION Was the tale of Scottish cannibal Sawney Bean true or anti-Jacobite propaganda?
alexanDer ‘sawney’ Bean and his family were said to be highway robbers and cannibals during the reign of James i of scotland in the early 15th century.
a lack of documentary and archaeological evidence, and the fact the story was not widely circulated until the early 17th century, suggests it may have been used to discredit the scots.
according to the tale, sawney Bean was born in east lothian in the 14th century. He disliked working in his father’s trade of hedger and ditcher so, with a woman as viciously inclined as himself, went to live in a cave in Bennane Head on the galloway shore.
They stayed there for 20 years and produced eight sons and six daughters who, through incest, provided them with 18 grandsons and 14 granddaughters.
They lived by highway robbery and preserved the victims’ bodies in seawater before eating them. as the popular song goes: ‘For Sawney he has taen a wife And he’s hungry bairns tae wean And he’s raised them up on the flesh
o’ men In the cave of Sawney Bean.’ Their reign of terror came to an end in 1430 when James i hunted them down with 400 men and a pack of dogs.
The Bean family were taken in chains to edinburgh where the men were executed by bleeding to death after their hands and feet were chopped off, while the women were burned at the stake. ‘They’ve hung them high in
Edinburgh toon An likewise a’ their kin An the wind blaws cauld on
a’ their banes An tae hell they a hae gaen.’ The story was popularised in a general History of The lives and adventures of The Most famous Highwaymen, Murderers, street robbers in 1734 by Captain Charles Johnson.
it was published in england at the height of sentiment against the Jacobites, who were supporters of the exiled roman Catholic stuart, James ii.
Johnson describes the scene where the king discovered the cave: ‘legs, arms, thighs, hands and feet of men, women and children were hung up in rows like dried beef.
‘a great many limbs lay in pickle, and a great mass of money, both gold and silver, with watches, rings and swords, pistols and a large quantity of clothes, both linen and woollen, and an infinite number of other things, which they had taken from those they had murder’d, were thrown together in heaps or hung up against the sides of the den.’
Johnson claimed the story is recorded in the 15th century newgate Calendar, but there is no evidence of this.
radio scotland’s Case re-opened concluded it was an english invention designed to denigrate the scots at the time of the Jacobite rebellions.
They pointed to the fact that the name sawney first appears in the oxford english Dictionary in 1704 as a derogatory term for a scotsman. IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow, G2 6DB. You can also email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published, but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.