368 spins in a second: Sonic-speed bug becomes fastest back-flipper on Earth

A tiny, six-legged bug called globular springtail has surprised researchers with its impressive jumping abilities.

This little guy can’t fly or sting, but it can backflip through the air like Sonic the Hedgehog (a popular video game character).

This creature performs incredible backflips, spinning at an astonishing rate of over “60 times its body height in the blink of an eye.

The North Carolina State University researchers used high-tech cameras to closely study this incredible jumping power of the globular springtail (Dicyrtomina minuta).

“When globular springtails jump, they don’t just leap up and down, they flip through the air – it’s the closest you can get to a Sonic the Hedgehog jump in real life,” said Adrian Smith, research assistant professor of biology at North Carolina State University.

Smith mentioned that no other animal can match their incredible backflip speed.

60 millimeters high into the air

These minuscule creatures are only “a couple millimeters” in length and pose no threat, as they neither fly nor bite. Their only defense against predators is to jump, and they are incredibly skilled at it, often disappearing from sight in an instant.

But studying their jumps is a challenge. They’re so fast, they blur out in regular cameras.

To solve this, Smith and the team used cameras filming at 40,000 frames per second.

By using light or a gentle touch from a paintbrush, Smith prompted the springtails to jump. He then studied their jumping motion, including takeoff speed, distance traveled, and landing style.

Through this, they uncovered the underlying biology behind their impressive backflips . Contrary to what might be expected, these hexapods don’t use their legs to jump.

These creatures use a specialized appendage called a furca that folds under their abdomen. This structure has a small, forked tip that propels them into a series of incredibly fast backflips when they jump.

It’s mind-blowing how quickly globular springtails can backflip off the ground. Surprisingly, it takes only one-thousandth of a second to backflip and reaches a peak spin rate of 368 spins per second. Moreover, they launch themselves to 60 millimeters into the air.

Landing can be messy

The team also found that the springtails’ jumps tend to drift backward, especially when starting from a flat surface.

The authors state that jumping isn’t used for getting around, but for survival.

“We think their jump is only used for rapid escape from predators or other danger they might encounter. If their jump was directional and forward, we might have expected it to be used in general locomotion. This doesn’t seem to be the case for these springtails,” Smith told Interesting Engineering (IE) .

Landing can be a bit tricky for these tiny creatures after their high-speed backflips. A careful analysis of the recorded backflips identified two distinct landing styles: uncontrolled and anchored.

As per the press release , these bugs possess a sticky, forked tube that they can push out of their bodies to anchor themselves or stop their momentum. Despite having the sticky tube, some springtails were observed to land by bouncing and tumbling.

With the rise of nature-inspired robots and drones, IE inquired with Smith if the springtail’s exceptional jumping ability could be a source of inspiration for future technologies. He told us: “Perhaps, and we are doing follow-up studies to exact some general engineering and design principles from these organisms.”

Smith added: “But, for this study, the goal was to just first get a better description and analysis of what these organisms are doing. It’s best to start by describing and observing an organism in as much detail as you can before thinking about applications.”

The findings were published in the journal Integrative Organismal Biology.