CoolDigitalPhotography presents an album of grasshoppers HERE.
Posts Tagged 'bugs'
20 Awe-inspiring Grasshopper Pictures
Published January 8, 2016 Uncategorized 1 CommentTags: bugs, grasshopper, insects, photography, pic, picture, wildlife
Living Creature Found With Mechanical Gears
Published September 13, 2013 Uncategorized Leave a CommentTags: aphid, bugs, crickets, Entomology, insects, involute gear, Issus, leafhopper, mechanical engineering, Mechanical Gears, physiology, planthopper, wildlife
Issus, a type of planthopper has perfectly formed gears on its legs. The gears are present in the young issus, but disappear when it reaches adulthood.
According to Popular Mechanics –
With two diminutive legs locked into a leap-ready position, the tiny jumper bends its body taut like an archer drawing a bow. At the top of its legs, a minuscule pair of gears engage—their strange, shark-fin teeth interlocking cleanly like a zipper. And then, faster than you can blink, think, or see with the naked eye, the entire thing is gone. In 2 milliseconds it has bulleted skyward, accelerating at nearly 400 g’s—a rate more than 20 times what a human body can withstand. At top speed the jumper breaks 8 mph—quite a feat considering its body is less than one-tenth of an inch long.