OUGD405 Studio Brief 02 Muscle and Leg Structure of Insects

Legs 

The fore-legs are located on the prothorax, the mid-legs on the mesothorax, and the hind legs on the metathorax. Each leg has six major components, listed here from proximal to distal: coxa (plural coxae), trochanter, femur (plural femora), tibia(plural tibiae), tarsus (plural tarsi), pretarsus.

The femur and tibia may be modified with spines.  The tarsus appears to be divided into one to five "pseudosegments" called tarsomeres. Like the mouthparts and antennae, insect legs are highly modified for different functions, depending on the environment and lifestyle of an insect.

The most noticeable thing is the way the orientation of the muscles on the inside limits movement to a certain extent, arguably creating a slightly robotic movement pattern. This creates a strong impression that insects are fundamentally different from ourselves limiting the amount of empathy we can feel for them. When considering the design of robots, it also occurs that they operate through an exoskeleton and one of the fundamental recurring themes in any futuristic narrative is the idea that robots will rise up and attack us, because we took no notice of the fact that they were superior to us. (Irobot and terminator are a few examples of this). Examples of this robotic, exact movement can be seen in the machine like tracks they leave behind.

However, there are certain exceptions to this rule. For example, most beetles have ambulatory legs, which provide the most limited movement for walking not running. This often seems quite sweet in a limited condescending way. This illuminates the fact that what unsettles us is a way of moving that could been seen as superior to our own, anything that is less than us in anyway is fine.

A really distinctive way that shows insects arguable physical superiority over humans is the way they specialise so easily for a ridiculously wide range of habitats. What springs to mind is one of those children's books that match the different outfits from different professions together. This could be done with the specialised parts of the insect even with the sections of the latin names matching together to create the 'ultimate' insect.