Hasta La Ideas

This will either creep you out, fascinate you, or frighten you. The mechanical gear that propelled the Industrial Revolution and, indirectly, our very profession of industrial design, is one of mankind’s more profoundly impactful inventions. But two biologists from the University of Cambridge have just discovered that the mechanical gear exists in nature.

Scientists Malcolm Burrows and Gregory Sutton discovered tiny, toothed, interlocking gears atop the hind legs of a three-millimeter-long bug known as Issus coleoptratus. Colloquially known as a “planthopper,” the jumping, flea-like bug cocks its hind legs into a “loaded” position; as it “unloads,” the legs swiftly rotate backwards, enabling the bug to get some NBA-like air. The gears connecting the top of the legs—which even have filleted teeth—ensure perfect synchronicity of the leg extensions, enabling accurate and predictable jumping.

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