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Now that's a jump!
It would make even Michael Jordan proud.
Look at it again.
See how the abdomen curls up
as the mantis leaps?
That curl is the crutial move
for a juvenile mantis
-- which doesn't have any wings yet --
when it launches itself towards a target.
That's what Cambridge University
researchers found
when they analyzed the leap
using high speed video.
The curled abdomen changes
the center of the jumpers mass
and it also generates
just a little bit of spin.
It turns out that the mantis needs
to generate some spin first
and then correct it on the fly
in order to make an accurate jump.
That finding could be
very useful for engineers
who are now trying to figure out
how to make jumping robots
not spin out of control.
Look what happens to the mantis
when glue is used to make the abdomen
too stiff to curl properly.
The mantises couldn't do it.
Sometimes they even crashed head on.
Of course, even without the glue
the mantises weren't perfect.
But then, neither was Michael Jordan.
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