A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1039 entries
whirligig
A whirligig is a small shiny black beetle that lives on the surface of still water, swimming in fast erratic circles in groups of dozens or hundreds. Its eyes are divided in two, an upper pair looking into the air and a lower pair looking underwater, so it watches both at once. Its middle and hind legs are flattened into paddles that beat many times a second.
Etymology
The word is Middle English for a spinning toy, from a verb meaning to whirl, and it was applied to the beetle for the obvious reason. It is one of a set of English words built by reduplication and rhyme for things that move unpredictably, and the beetle also carries the American name apple bug, from the smell it produces when handled.
Notes
The circling is not aimless. Whirligigs navigate by sending out ripples and reading the echoes bouncing back off obstacles, which is a surface-wave version of echolocation, and it works in the dark and in a crowd. In a group they space themselves and share information about approaching threats, and a disturbed raft scatters and reforms within seconds.