Fig. 5. Visualization of the evolution of vortex-wake topology and the attachment of the LEV for decreasing dimensionless wavelength ^*. The wake dynamics evolves from a wavy von Kármán wake (WK) into an aperiodic wake densely packed with large interacting vortices (A–G, left: overview wake, right, zoomed in on LEV). The soap film flows from left to right and all images have been taken mid-stroke during the downstroke. The leading edge vortex is indicated by LEV, a vortex pair by P, a single vortex by S, vortex tearing by t, and vortex merging by m. Note that the naming of the wakes is simplified and should be taken as a guideline: we have neglected a few tiny vortices that are shed at some advanced ratios for simplicity. (Note: A, ^*=24; B, ^*=10; C, ^*=7.9; D, ^*=6.8; E, ^*=6.3; F, ^*=4.5; G, ^*=4.0.)