Figure 4

Mechanism of water transport by open capillaries.

(a,b) Sequence of images showing the penetration of a 1-nL water droplet in (a) HLP and (b) PLP areas of the wettability-modified legs at r = 0.35 captured using a high-speed camera (1,000 frames per second). (c) Schematic illustration of the water transport mechanism by open capillaries on the 4^th and 5^th podites. Water initially rapidly infiltrated into the HLP area, before spreading to the PLP area in the centre of open capillaries without any leakage. The PLP area in the centre of open capillaries played an important role as a water reservoir.