The “planthopper” Issus coeleoptratus gears explain mysterious bumps on in its hind legs.
Young planthopper insects (Issus coleoptratus) can jump about three feet in a single bound. They employ gear wheels—complete with teeth that interlock with grooves—to coordinate their hind legs during high-speed jumps.
While we unwittingly ignore our much more complex systems (such as our brains and eyes which provide us thought and vision to help us understand the planthopper) we marvel at the apparent gear system. Ironically, it is because gears shout of design! The gear system stands in stark rebuke of the concept of non-purposative accounts of biological systems; Systems imagined as being blindly and randomly formed by spontaneous chance. Evolution requires quite an imagination!
For the planthopper not to go spinning like a Frisbee their hind legs must fire with jaw-dropping precision: within three one hundredths of one second!
Their two hind legs move within 30 microseconds of each other during a launch, compared with the two- to three-millisecond delay between the two hind legs of grasshoppers.
Lee, Jane J. “Insects Use Gears in Hind Legs to Jump” National Geographic, Sept 2013
To scale this would be the equivalent of a human jumping some 600 feet from a crouching potion. Truly stunning and magnificent design of God!
Malcolm Burrows, a University of Cambridge Researcher.
“I’m not aware of any example of gear wheels interacting with each other in (that) way…”
More related blogs: SPIDER WEB: AN ENGINEERING MARVEL, EXPLAINING WHAT SOMETHING IS, DOES NOT EXPLAIN ITS ORIGIN, FLOWERS USE ELECTRICITY TO ATTRACT BEES, BOMBARDIER BEETLE USES CHEMICAL WARFARE, KINESIN, HEAVY LIFTING, IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX, WONDER OF THE CELL, RIBOSOMES: IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX, INGENIOUSLY DESIGNED
