Scientists have investigated how quickly hoverflies start beating their wings when dropped both in complete darkness and in a lighted environment. Starting from rest, the insects were dropped from the top of a $40-$cm

$-$tall box. In the light, those flies that began flying $200$ ms

after being dropped avoided hitting the bottom of the box $80\%$

of the time, while those in the dark avoided hitting only $22\%$

of the time.