Animal locomotion on the water surface

[3] As striders increase in size, their legs become proportionately longer, with Gigantometra gigas having a length of over 20 cm requiring a surface tension force of about 40 millinewtons.

David Hu and coworker John W. M. Bush have shown that such insects climb meniscuses by assuming a fixed body posture.

Hu and Bush conclude that meniscus climbing is an unusual means of propulsion in that the insect propels itself in a quasi-static configuration, without moving its appendages.

Marangoni propulsion by a wetting arthropod is precisely analogous to a soap boat but the situation for insects such as water striders is more complex.

Hu and Bush state that "for nonwetting arthropods, the transfer of chemical to kinetic energy is more subtle, as the Marangoni stress must be communicated across the creature’s complex surface layer".