Nature's Mechanical Secrets Could Help Build Faster Robots

The most impressive jaws in nature belong not to a bear or a shark but an insect called Odontomachus bauri. Popularly known as the trap-jaw ant, its mandibles, which it uses to snatch prey and catapult itself away from danger, accelerate shut at 1 million meters per second squared. The force from each jaw exceeds the insect's body weight more than 300 times over, propelling the ant to heights as lofty--for an bug, anyway--as eight centimeters, and distances of close to 40 centimeters. The insect's secret is a spring-latch system that allows it to store large amounts of energy and release it almost instantaneously. Such systems are common in small organisms, including animals (like the infamously pugilistic mantis shrimp), plants (like the infamously carnivorous Venus flytrap), and even mushrooms, many of which eject their spores with phenomenal fungal power.