Caught on camera: fleas' spectacular leaps
When fleas jump, it is no ordinary leap. The insects shoot as high as 38 times their body length, more than 7 centimeters. And the acceleration is so intense that fleas have to withstand 100 Gs, or 100 times the force of gravity.
"You and I pass out if we experience five Gs," said Malcolm Burrows, an expert on insect jumping at the University of Cambridge.
Dr. Burrows and his Cambridge colleague Gregory Sutton are using high-speed cameras to try to answer a question that had vexed naturalists for centuries: how fleas manage their spectacular jumps. In a paper published last month in The Journal of Experimental Biology, they report that fleas turn themselves into catapults, storing up energy that they release as they push off the ground with what passes for feet.
