{"id":67787,"date":"2022-01-19T14:01:40","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T19:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/?post_type=news&p=67787"},"modified":"2022-01-19T14:01:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T19:01:40","slug":"scientists-find-previously-unknown-jumping-behavior-in-insects","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/news\/scientists-find-previously-unknown-jumping-behavior-in-insects\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Find Previously Unknown Jumping Behavior in Insects"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Laemophloeus<\/a>Laemophloeus biguttatus<\/em> larvae at various stages of their jump (top three images); motion-capture of a jump (bottom image). Image credit: Matt Bertone.<\/span><\/p>\n

A team of researchers has discovered a jumping behavior that is entirely new to insect larvae,\u00a0and there is evidence that it is occurring in a range of species\u00a0\u2013 we\u00a0just\u00a0haven\u2019t\u00a0noticed it before.<\/p>\n

The previously unrecorded behavior occurs in the larvae of a species of lined flat bark beetle (Laemophloeus\u00a0biguttatus<\/em>). Specifically, the larvae are able to spring into the air, with each larva curling itself into a loop as it leaps forward. What makes these leaps unique is how the larvae are able to pull it off.<\/p>\n

\u201cJumping at all is exceedingly rare in the larvae of beetle species, and the mechanism they use to execute their leaps is \u2013 as far as we can tell \u2013 previously unrecorded in any insect larvae,\u201d says Matt Bertone, corresponding author of a paper on the discovery and director of North Carolina State University\u2019s Plant Disease and Insect Clinic.<\/p>\n

While there are other insect species that are capable of making prodigious leaps, they rely on something called a \u201clatch-mediated spring actuation mechanism.\u201d This means that they essentially have two parts of their body latch onto each other while the insect exerts force, building up a significant amount of energy. The insect then unlatches the two parts, releasing all of that energy at once, allowing it to spring off the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes the\u00a0L.\u00a0biguttatus<\/em>\u00a0so remarkable is that it makes these leaps without latching two parts of its body together,\u201d Bertone says. \u201cInstead, it uses claws on its legs to grip the ground while it builds up that potential energy \u2013 and once those claws release their hold on the ground, that potential energy is converted into kinetic energy, launching it skyward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery of the behavior was somewhat serendipitous. Bertone had collected a variety of insect samples from a rotting tree near his lab in order to photograph them when he noticed that these beetle larvae appeared to be hopping.<\/p>\n

\"Larval<\/a>Larval stage of Laemophloeus biguttatus<\/em> on the left; adult stage on the right. Photos: Matt Bertone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bertone and\u00a0paper co-author\u00a0Adrian Smith then decided to film the behavior in order to get a better look at what was going on.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0when they began to understand just how peculiar the behavior was.\u00a0Smith is a research assistant professor of biological sciences at NC State and head of the\u00a0Evolutionary Biology & Behavior Research Lab\u00a0at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way these larvae were jumping\u00a0was impressive at first, but we didn\u2019t immediately understand how unique it was,\u201d Bertone says.\u00a0\u201cWe then shared it with a number of beetle experts\u00a0around the country, and none of them had seen the jumping behavior before. That\u2019s when we realized we needed to take a closer look at just how the larvae was doing what it was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

To determine how\u00a0L.\u00a0biguttatus<\/em>\u00a0was able to execute its acrobatics, the researchers filmed the\u00a0jumps\u00a0at speeds of up to 60,000 frames per second. This allowed them to capture all of the external movements associated with the jumps, and suggested that the legs were essentially creating a latching mechanism with the ground.<\/p>\n

The researchers also conducted a muscle mass assessment to determine whether it was possible for the larvae to make their leaps using just their muscles, as opposed to using a latch mechanism to store energy. They found that the larvae lacked sufficient muscle to hurl themselves into the air as far or as fast as they had been filmed jumping.\u00a0Ergo, latching onto the ground was the only way the larvae could pull off their aerial feats.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in\u00a0an unrelated video about jumping maggots, Smith\u00a0had\u00a0included a short clip of the jumping behavior in\u00a0L.\u00a0biguttatus<\/em>. That video\u00a0was seen\u00a0by a researcher in Japan named\u00a0Takahiro Yoshida, who had witnessed similar\u00a0jumps\u00a0in the larvae of another beetle species called\u00a0Placonotus\u00a0testaceus<\/em>, but had not published anything related to the behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have high-speed footage of\u00a0P.\u00a0testaceus<\/em>, but the video evidence we do have from Yoshida\u2019s lab suggests that this previously unknown behavior is found in two different genera which are not even\u00a0closely related,\u201d Bertone says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis raises a lot of questions. Has this behavior evolved separately?\u00a0Is it found\u00a0in other beetle species?\u00a0Are these genera more closely related\u00a0than we previously suspected? There\u2019s a lot of interesting work to be done here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video of the jumping behavior in\u00a0L.\u00a0biguttatus<\/em> can be found at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=y-b73G96UIQ<\/a><\/strong>, or watched below.<\/p>\n