Fat Combustion and Metabolic Rate of Flying Locusts (Schistocerca gregaria Forskal, Offprint, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. London: Royal Society, Vol. 237, No. 640, 14 August 1952, pp. 1–36
Cambridge: The Royal Society, 1952. 1st Edition. STUDIES INTO THE PHYSICS AND BIOLOGY OF INSECT FLIGHT, HERE THE METABOLISM OF FLYING DESERT LOCUSTS. Weis-Fogh was the research assistant of the Nobel Prize winning physiologist August Krogh. Among other things, Weis-Fogh here proves “Some insects utilize more than one type of metabolic fuel during flight. Migratory locusts shift from carbohydrate (trehalose and glycogen) to lipid fuels during flights that last more than 30 minutes” (Weis-Fogh, 1952; Dudley, The Biomechanics of Insect Flight: Form, Function, Evolution, 169).
Like Krogh, Torkel Weis-Fogh was Danish. His contributions to our understanding of insect flight have been of such import that his discovery of “the clap and fling mechanism used by very small insects” was later named the Weis-Fogh mechanism in his honor (Wikipedia).
In this paper, Weis-Fogh studied the metabolism of flying desert locusts by direct analyses of the content of fat and glycogen in controls and in animals. Weis-Fogh proves that these insects exclusively utilize carbohydrates for flight. Further, “Weis-Fogh (1952) points out that even in the locust carbohydrate is consumed at the start of flight, and correlates this with the greater ease of mobilization of glycogen rather than fat, which is a more suitable fuel for long-distance, steady fliers” (Pringle, Insect Flight, 44). Item #976
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