The US Navy has successfully completed the engineering phase of F-5N+/F+ avionics reconfiguration and tactical enhancement/modernisation for inventory standardisation (ARTEMIS) programme.
Previously believed to be only man-made, a natural example of a functioning gear mechanism has been discovered in a common insect - showing that evolution developed interlocking cogs long before we did.
In Issus, the skeleton is used to solve a complex problem that the brain and nervous system can’t
Malcolm Burrows
The juvenile
Issus - a plant-hopping insect found in gardens across Europe - has hind-leg joints with curved cog-like strips of opposing ‘teeth’ that intermesh, rotating like mechanical gears to synchronise the animal’s legs when it launches into a jump.
The finding demonstrates that gear mechanisms previously thought to be solely man-made have an evolutionary precedent. Scientists say this is the “first observation of mechanical gearing in a biological structure”.