Gears have long been thought to have been associated with man-made objects such as clocks and machines, but it appears that nature may have had that idea first.
Researchers reported in the UK journal "Science" this week that they had discovered that a certain species of young insects, known by their scientific name as Issis coleoptratus, poses a rare physical characteristic, being two gears found on their hind legs-something not found until now in any living thing in nature.
"We always think of gears in our cars or bikes," Malcolm Burrows, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge and an author of the study, told the New York Times. "We don't see them to be present in animals."
On each of the insect's hind legs are a curved strip that holds between 10 to 12 gear-like "teeth" that, Burrows' research reports, helps the insect's legs synchronize when it jumps. Footage of the insect in action shows a young insect of that variety, found mostly in Europe, using the gears in slow motion as it prepares to leap in one motion.
As PBS News reports, Burros and mechanical engineer Greg Sutton studied the insect for the last 10 years, focusing on the movements of the creature. They took pictures of the insects by flipping them on their backs and tickling them with a paintbrush.
How fast could the insects' legs synch up? According to what Burrows and Sutton's findings, they could do it at a speed of 30 millionths of a second-which is faster than a neuron in the human brain. That means that the legs of the insects could start jumping faster before their nervous system could order that move.
With the gear teeth hooking up with each other prior to the insect leaping, according to Burrows, the power is able to be delivered to both legs at the same time without twisting either leg.
The discovery is one that fellow scientists can appreciate.
"It's very exciting to see one after another component of human mechanical engineering being discovered in the living world, too," Alexander Riedel, curator of the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe in Germany, told Fox News.