How does the little beetle spring?
By Rhiannonw
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More than 200g g-force
experienced at take-off
(– extremely extreme);
and each time it can jump
over 200 times its body length,
(like a man jumping 500 metres),
and can consecutively repeat
30 times – fantastic
feat
(even fleas and leaf-hoppers* can’t compete),
three moving parts attached to muscles
balanced, interlocking, elastic.
Powerful and elegant leaf beetle leg:
sophisticated spring must come complete
(not by chance accumulation
of unguided changes –
survival would be disadvantaged
if spring incomplete);
but of course
many still think this could,
and must,
by chance arise,
though there’s no surprise
that the robotic limb they made
by copying the beetle’s spring
is understood to have needed
their intelligence to plan and devise;
but that which they copy is so fine
it must have had divine design
– not chance –
to imagine and configure,
invent, construct, create
and fashion, exquisite tiny mechanism
so intricate.
* https://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/plant-hopper%E2%80%99s-gears
This refers to the hind legs of several species of leaf beetles (Blepharida sp., Longitarsus sp., and Psylliodes sp. The picture I’ve put is just a generic sketch of a beetle.
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