Ant jaws: “fastest animal appendage”
Some small animals can generate very fast blows; we have written on the amazing mantis shrimp that can shatter the walls of glass tanks (Creation 30(2):12–13, 2008; creation.com/shrimpy-superboxer). However, muscles just can’t move that fast. The great speed is the result of a catapult mechanism: this allows muscles to store lots of energy in some springy material, then a latch releases it suddenly. All must be finely coordinated.
However, the mandibles (jaws) of the Dracula ant, Mystrium camillae, exceed even the shrimp in speed and acceleration. Here, the springy material and the latch are both in the jaw itself. The ant presses its jaws together, until they snap, rather like snapping our fingers. But they are much faster: the strike is over in 23 microseconds, with a top speed of 90 m/s (200 mph). Its acceleration is astounding—over a million g, where 1 g is acceleration due to Earth’s gravity; a trained astronaut will pass out at 10 g.
- Larabeem F.J., Smith, A.S., and Suarez, A.V., Snap-jaw morphology is specialized for high-speed power amplification in the Dracula ant, Mystrium camillae, Royal Society Open Science, 12 December 2018 | doi:10.1098/rsos.181447.
Readers’ comments
Comments are automatically closed 14 days after publication.