Scientists discover a uniquely jumping larva – only to encounter tentative evidence that the strange jump may affect a wide variety of species.

We know that some insects can make miraculous jumps. But the way the beetle’s larvae Laemophloeus biguttatus jumping is very unique. In fact, scientists didn’t even know this jump existed!

insect jumps

Most jumping insects all follow a fairly similar method. They essentially ‘click’ two body parts together as the insect exerts force and builds up a significant amount of energy. The insect then unlocks the two body parts, releasing all that energy at once. And so the beast jumps around.

Laemophloeus biguttatus

However, researchers have now a new study discovered that the insect larvae of the beetle Laemophloeus biguttatus adopt a very different and rather peculiar tactic.

Photo of Laemophloeus biguttatus. Left: a larva. Right: an adult specimen. Image: Matt Bertone, NC State University

“What the jump of Laemophloeus biguttatus What makes them so remarkable is that they jump without clicking two body parts together,” explains researcher Matt Bertone. Instead, each larva curls itself into a loop as it leaps forward. “It uses the claws on its legs to grip the ground while building energy,” says Bertone. “As soon as those claws release the ground, the energy is converted into kinetic energy, causing the larva to launch itself, as it were.”

The particularly acrobatic jump of Laemophloeus biguttatus. Image: Matt Bertone, NC State University

This unique jump may be insect larvae’s best kept secret. “This jump is extremely rare,” says Bertone. “The mechanism they use – as far as we can tell now – has not been described before.”

Accidentally

The discovery of this particular jump was somewhat coincidental. Bertone encountered the larvae near a decaying tree near his lab and noticed that they appeared to be jumping. Bertone decided to film the behavior and then found out how peculiar the jump was. “The way these larvae jumped around was impressive,” he says. “However, we didn’t immediately understand how unique it was.” It wasn’t until the researchers shared their footage with beetle experts and no one had ever seen this jump before that they realized they were witnessing something special here. “We wanted to take a closer look at what exactly the larvae were doing here,” says Bertone.

Video

To properly investigate the acrobatic movements of the larvae, the research team filmed the jumps at speeds as high as 60,000 frames per second. As a result, they managed to capture all the individual movements that make up the jump in pin-sharp detail. In this way they discovered that the legs form a kind of locking mechanism with the ground.

Other species

Although this acrobatic jump has not been described before, it may well be that a wide range of species are progressing in a similar way. When Japanese researcher Takahiro Yoshida looked at Bertone’s images, he realized he had seen a similar jump among larvae of another beetle species: Placonotus testaceus. “Unfortunately we have no images of jumping Placonotus testaceus,” says Bertone. “But the evidence we have from Yoshida’s lab tentatively suggests that the previously unknown jump occurs in at least two different genera that aren’t even closely related.”

The research therefore raises many questions. “Has the curious jump evolved separately?” Bertone wonders aloud. “Do several beetle species jump this way? Or are the genera studied perhaps more closely related than we previously thought? There is still a lot of interesting research to be done here.”