If an insect Olympiad were to be held, the gold medal in high jump would undoubtedly go to the foaming cicada ( Philaenus spumarius ), the only creature capable of jumping a distance 100 times its own height . On a human scale, the equivalent would be an athlete capable of overcoming the Great Pyramid of Giza with a single jump. To achieve such a feat, experts calculate that the insect needs an initial acceleration of 4,000 meters per second and must generate a force on its body 80 times greater than what we would need to put an astronaut in orbit.
Now, a team of zoologists from the University of Cambridge has just found out that the secret of this ability lies in a small internal structure located between its hind legs and its wings . Like an archer drawing his weapon, the Philaneus contracts its muscles by curving part of its skeleton (the pleural bow) before releasing all energy in a single blow, just like a catapult . Among the components of this sophisticated organ, resilin stands out, a protein with such spectacular elastic power that scientists are already trying to create a synthetic analog for commercialization.
Details of the study have been published in the journal BMC Biology .
