Researchers have discovered, for the first time, “mechanical gears” in nature. Juvenile planthoppers use a set of interlocking teeth, similar to cogs, to coordinate their legs as they jump. Juvenile ...

The small hopping insect Issus coleoptratus uses toothed gears (magnified above with an electron microscope) to precisely synchronize the kicks of its hind legs as it jumps forward. All images ...

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 ...

“We have built a gear train in which a light-driven gear sets the entire chain in motion,” explains lead author Gan Wang, a ...

Previously believed to be only human-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 ...