How fleas jump so far
FEB 10, 2011
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.025045
BBC : Researchers at Cambridge University have identified the mechanism by which fleas jump up to 200 times the length of their bodies. Fleas make use of a spring, rather than their muscles, to store jumping energy in their hind legs. What was in question was how the energy is released. In a paper that appears in the Journal of Experimental Biology, zoologists Gregory Sutton and Malcolm Burrows report the results of a study that entailed both modeling a flea’s legs and filming fleas as they jump. The researchers conclude that the spring delivers its impulse via the explosive extension of a flea’s tibia (shin) and tarsus (foot), rather than through its trochanter (knee).
© 2011 American Institute of Physics
