This insect has hind-leg joints with curved cog-like strips of opposing ‘teeth’ that intermesh, rotating like mechanical gears to synchronize the animal’s legs when it launches into a jump.
Each gear tooth has a rounded corner at the point it connects to the gear strip; a feature identical to man-made gears such as bike gears – essentially a shock-absorbing mechanism to stop teeth from shearing off.
The gear teeth on the opposing hind-legs lock together like those in a car gear-box, ensuring almost complete synchronicity in leg movement - the legs always move within 30 ‘microseconds’ of each other, with one microsecond equal to a millionth of a second.
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| Insect gears closer view |
“These gears are not designed; they are evolved - representing high speed and precision machinery evolved for synchronisation in the animal world.”
