How fast does each courier fly?
Six insects, sorted by how they find their way, not by how fast they sprint. Every speed is a real measurement with a source, and a letter flies the great-circle route at exactly that pace. A week's reach is speed × 168 hours.
A courier makes the roster only if its speed was measured and published: a wind tunnel, a radar track, a high-speed camera. Where a source gives both, the table says whether the figure is ground speed or unassisted airspeed.
| Courier | Speed | How it navigates | A week's reach | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🪲 Dung beetle | 0.2 km/h | rolls a straight line, steering off the Milky Way | 34 km | Milky Way orientation: Dacke et al., Current Biology 2013 |
| 🐜 Silver ant | 3.1 km/h | 855 mm/s, fastest ant alive · counts its steps home | 521 km | 855 mm/s: Pfeffer et al., J Exp Biol 2019 (Guinness, fastest ant) |
| 🐝 Honeybee | 22 km/h | waggle-dances the bearing back to the hive | 3,696 km | 13.9 mph (22 km/h) cruising flight speed |
| 🦗 Desert locust | 33 km/h | wind-tunnel measured · swarms cross continents | 5,544 km | 33 km/h, wind-tunnel measurement |
| 🦋 Painted lady | 45 km/h | radar-tracked · crosses the Sahara twice, 12,000 km | 7,560 km | 45 km/h radar ground speed, ~22 km/h unassisted; 12,000–14,000 km round trip (University of Reading) |
| Green darner | 56 km/h | fastest insect reliably clocked · migrates in relays | 9,408 km | ~56 km/h (35 mph), Smithsonian |
Why can't any insect cross 11,000 km in a week?
Jakarta to Amsterdam by green darner is about eight and a half days. Regional Asia-Pacific and the Middle East land inside a week. Europe and the Americas do not. Distance means something again.
Which insects are not on the roster, and why?
The horsefly's 145 km/h has never been rigorously reproduced, and it bites people. Nothing that bites, nothing associated with rot.
Wanted, blocked on data: the bogong moth flies 1,000 km by starlight, the first invertebrate shown to use a stellar compass (Nature, 2025), but no published flight speed exists. The globe skimmer dragonfly crosses the Indian Ocean over several generations.