Functioning 'mechanical gears' seen in nature for the first time
Previously believed to be only man-made, a natural example of a functioning gear mechanism has been discovered in a common insect - showing that evolution developed interlocking cogs long before we did. In Issus, the skeleton is used to solve a complex problem that the brain and nervous system can’t Malcolm Burrows The juvenile Issus - a plant-hopping insect found in gardens across Europe - has hind-leg joints with curved cog-like strips of opposing ‘teeth’ that intermesh, rotating like mechanical gears to synchronise the animal’s legs when it launches into a jump. The finding demons...
Source: cam.ac.uk