5 Amazing Animal Movers
Whether they’re foraging for food, evading a predator, or just heading home to nest, nearly all animals move at some point in their lives. Evolution has produced some amazing methods of locomotion.
Hovering flight is an aerodynamic challenge: in nature, only dragonflies and hover flies can manage the feat while keeping their bodies perfectly horizontal. Dragonflies hover by deploying their four wings in a specific order; helicopter blades spin on a rotor while the pilot constantly adjusts blade angle. Today, engineers look to dragonflies for inspiration in designing small-scale robotic devices.
These spiders make extraordinary leaps—up to 25 times their body length--to capture prey and avoid becoming prey. Instead of using leg muscles, the spider pumps fluid into its legs to achieve hydraulic liftoff.
How do geckos manage to walk on the ceiling? It’s thanks to as many as a billion microscopic stalks ending in tiny pads called spatulae (SPAH-choo-lee) that contact the surface whenever a gecko plants its feet. Spatulae are so tiny that they are subject to the same molecular forces that hold liquids and solids together.
How does the tiny insect launch itself into a jump that may be more than 200 times its body length? Its muscles, slowly but continually, compress a rubber-like protein called resilin at the base of its legs. When that stored energy is released, the insect takes off like a stone from a slingshot!
Kangaroos hop comfortably at 13-16 miles (20-25 kilometers) an hour but can go a lot faster—up to 44 miles (70 kilometers) per hour--in short bursts. Surprisingly, the animals seem to use the same amount of energy at both speeds.
Images: Dragonfly, Wikimedia/R. A. Nonenmacher; Spider, AMNH/D.Finnin; Gecko, AMNH/D.Finnin; Flea, R. Hooke Micrographia; Kangaroo, Wikimedia
