Nap time tails12/20/2023 ![]() Animals that have lost tails could not dissipate suffient energy and fell. This pitch-back of the torso dissipates energy as it pushes the tail hard into the trunk. During the bend, the front feet lose grip. Geckos who had naturally lost their tails could not maintain their grip after the crash and, consequently, fell off the tree trunk after landing.Īs can be seen in the corresponding video, the mechanism the animal applies to cushion the impact is bending its torso backward as far as 100 degrees. With tailless animals, it was quite the opposite. Unlike a car that would be heavily dented after driving into a tree at this speed, the footage shows the gecko landing on the trunk without falling off. High-speed cameras capture the fall and show that the jumping gecko reaches a speed of 6 metres per second, which is just over 21 km/h. Placed on a platform seven meters above the ground, a tail-equipped gecko leaps down into the deep and glides to a nearby tree. This enabled Ardian Jusufi to explore a situation where reptiles both with and without a tail face the challenge of a short accelerating glide Geckos shed their tails when they are in danger. He has spent many years investigating geckos and discovered several of their locomotion capabilities. At the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, he leads the Cyber Valley research group Locomotion in Biorobotic and Somatic Systems. © Photos: Ardian Jusufi / Illustration: Andre WeeĪrdian Jusufi, who works at the interface between robotics and biology, has set up several experiments in a wildlife reserve in the rainforests of Singapore to explore how geckos can use their tails to control gliding flight, aim at a target at lightning speed and land in confined spaces.
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