Abstract
The surfaces of lakes, ponds and even puddles provide very special environments. Wherever air and calm water meet, a surface film divides the dry world above from the wet world below. The particular properties of the water surface are created by the attractive forces between water molecules. Within a body of water these forces occur equally from all sides, but near the surface the attractive forces from below are greater than those from above; hence the molecules near the water-air interface are pulled toward the water’s center of mass. As a result the surface acts as if it were a stretched elastic membrane, supporting objects with a density greater than that of water and allowing certain animals to stand and move on it.
Financial support for the experimental work of the author was provided by the Deutsche Forchungsgemeinschaft grants to E. Schwartz (Schw. 21/5)and F. G. Barth (SFB 45, A4)
I am Grateful to Dr. W. Gnatzy for critically reading the manuscript and to J. Ruthven for commenting on the English
Present address: University of California, San Diego, Department of Neurosciences A-001, School of Medicine, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
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Bleckmann, H. (1985). Perception of Water Surface Waves: How Surface Waves Are Used for Prey Identification, Prey Localization, and Intraspecific Communication. In: Autrum, H., Ottoson, D., Perl, E.R., Schmidt, R.F., Shimazu, H., Willis, W.D. (eds) Progress in Sensory Physiology. Progress in Sensory Physiology, vol 5. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70408-6_4
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