Springtails, small bugs often found crawling through leaf litter and garden soil, are expert jumpers. Inspired by these hopping hexapods, roboticists have made a walking, jumping robot that pushes the ...

Springtails are about the size of a pinhead, but they can control their jumps like seasoned acrobats. By Oliver Whang Among the wonders of the natural world that few people have ever noticed: a ...

You may not know what a springtail is but man, those little things can jump! Scientists have now copied the creatures' jumping mechanism in a small robot that could one day explore places that people ...

The next time you’re near a pond or creek, bend down and take a closer look—you just might see tiny insect-like organisms, not much bigger than the width of a spaghetti strand, taking incredible leaps ...

A tiny arthropod beats out all other creatures for the world’s fastest backflip. The minuscule globular springtail has a flip rate of 368 per second. They jump so fast they seem to vanish in front of ...