Jump to Taobao as soon as you click it? These animals can jump faster than Taobao!

During this Double Eleven, did you also experience the phenomenon of “all roads lead to Taobao”? Pick up your phone, and no matter which app you open, it seems to sense your slight shake and then jump to the famous orange software.

Shopping apps do everything they can to make you jump, fearing that you will miss out on several discounts a year; in the animal world, there are also some players who are very good at "jumping" . Today, let's select these animals that have made the list. (This turn is also quite jumpy.)

Highest, Farthest

Whether it is high jump or long jump, the champion in the animal world may be fleas . Generally speaking, fleas can jump to a height of 38 times their body length , that is, 7.62 cm, and the jumping acceleration reaches 100G (ordinary people will faint under 5G acceleration). If humans have the same ability, they can easily jump up a 20-story building.

Why are fleas so powerful? Someone has actually studied this question. Using high-speed cameras, biologists Sutton and Burrows found that fleas seem to jump with the same effect when they use both their knees and feet or their feet alone. Mathematical models have shown that actual jumping is accomplished by transferring energy to the end of the leg, the "foot joint." [1]

Image source: Reference [1]

Next time you do a long jump, maybe try to find this "foot-driven" feeling.

The most unexpected destination

Another species that has "jump" written into its name is Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), or salmon in a narrow sense.

Atlantic salmon was named by Linnaeus, the famous "father of taxonomy" in 1758. The genus name "Salmo" means "to rise" in Latin, which represents its excellent jumping ability when swimming upstream and flying over waterfalls during migration ; the species name "salar" comes from the Latin word "sailo", which means "leaper". Due to its migratory habits, people can see it in rivers and mountain streams along the northern coast of Europe (North Atlantic Ocean), northern Europe and eastern North America.

Predators take advantage of the salmon's migratory habits and wait for this year's delicacy in the rivers where salmon appear. Of course, salmon don't just sit there and wait for death. Sometimes, they appear in unexpected places, such as on the face of a brown bear...

Photographer: John Chaney | Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2022

The most unexpected player

If the way to "jump" is not so strictly defined, some unexpected players can also participate.

Yes, this is a flying snake. A more accurate term is "gliding". Chrysopelea sp . lives in dense jungles of Southeast Asia. Evolution has endowed them with the ability to glide through the forest. Chrysopelea sp. can use muscle power to open its ribs and "flatten" its cylindrical body, thereby increasing resistance when landing. This glide can sometimes last hundreds of meters.

The golden flower snake opens its body when gliding丨jeb.biologists.org

Most stable

If you’ve ever seen a video of a cat sliding down a hill on social media, you’ve probably noticed that they always land on all fours . With their flexible spines, cats can bend and twist their bodies in the air, easily transitioning from facing the sky to facing the ground, and finally bending their limbs slightly to get into position to land on all fours.

Superposition of two sets of rotation movements丨reddit.com

The BBC did a program called "Life in the Air", in which a set of slow-motion shots revealed how cats overcome gravity and land on all fours:

Image source: YouTube

The agile cats in the show are the Caracal , which is widely distributed in Africa and Asia. The Caracal is slender with long and powerful limbs. Its fur is generally reddish brown, brown, light brown, and there are a few black individuals. The body color of the Asian Caracal is lighter than that of the African one. The most notable feature of the Caracal is the long, pointed ears on its head, with black backs.

Caracal丨animagia.jp

The caracal is a good hunter among cats. The antennas on its ears are not just beautiful decorations, but also help collect the sounds made by prey and sense the direction and distance of prey; its limbs are strong and powerful, providing amazing jumping power for each attack, allowing it to easily jump to a height of 2 meters to catch birds in the air.

Caracal catching a bird. Image: YouTube

Most annoying

Anyone who has had a fish bone stuck in their throat probably has asked this question: Why do fish have fish bones?

The answer may be: to jump.

Many common edible fish have intermuscular bones, also known as fish bones. The intermuscular bones are small but sharp, and look like Y-shaped branches; but depending on the species, the branches also have a variety of shapes and evolved appearances.

Different intermuscular bones. Just by looking at the pictures, foodies can feel the pain of getting their throats pierced丨ejpau.media.pl / Andrzej Dowgiałło

Different fish have different numbers of intermuscular bones, which generally reflect the evolutionary level of the fish and the living environment it lives in. Many common edible fish have a very large number of intermuscular bones, such as about 99 in carp, about 143 in shad, and about 123 in silver carp ... The density is so high that even people who don't know how to pick fish bones would discourage them.

The arrow points to the intermuscular bone丨researchgate.net / Baolong Bao

There is a common phenomenon in fish with a lot of intramuscular bones: after going through so much trouble to remove all the bones, the little bit of fish meat you find is soft ... This is inseparable from the function of the intermuscular bones themselves.

At present, the main view in the scientific research community is that the role of intermuscular bones is to support the muscles of fish and coordinate the movement of fish, especially longitudinal movement . Many fish that do not exercise much (swimming level) can also have strong muscle movement ability at critical times because of intermuscular bones. The most common are those silver carp that can jump out of the water more than one meter high when startled - you say that silver carp usually just wander around in the lake and never do "physical exercise" such as long-distance swimming, so where does such good physical strength come from. In fact, the contribution of intermuscular bones in the high-jumping performance of silver carp cannot be ignored.

It is precisely because the intermuscular bones play the role of supporting the fish's body like a skeleton, the many scattered small muscles contained between the intermuscular bones naturally do not require excessive elasticity and firmness, and the fish meat feels relatively loose.

Silver carp jumping out of the water丨Wikipedia

The most extreme

In order to survive in the harsh Australian desert, many animals have evolved unique abilities. The kangaroo , Australia's representative animal, is an animal that uses jumping as a survival skill.

The largest existing kangaroo is the red kangaroo, which likes to live in arid and semi-arid areas such as deserts, grasslands, scrub and open woodlands. Except for relatively humid areas, it is distributed almost throughout Australia.

Red Kangaroo丨pinterest.com.au

Although red kangaroos are bipedal like humans, they do not walk upright, but can only jump . An adult male can jump more than 9 meters, nearly 2 meters high, and can reach speeds of up to 65 kilometers per hour.

Jumping is a very energy-saving way for red kangaroos to move - the faster they jump, the higher the energy utilization rate . When they move at full speed, the energy recovery rate can be as high as about 70%.

Kangaroos jumping | The World Safari / youtube

The main food of red kangaroos is grass, and they also eat some leaves. They can go without water for a long time and only get water from food. Their kidneys can also highly concentrate urine. In the dry season, they will look for food along waterways.

Red kangaroos are mostly active at night; when it is hot, they hide in the shade, reduce exercise, and constantly lick their short hands. This is because the skin of the short hands is very thin and has abundant capillaries, so that the saliva can effectively take away the heat when evaporating. In addition, they also have a layer of heat-insulating hair.

"It's so hot. If there's no ice cream to lick, I can only lick my hands." | Jami Tarris / photoshelter.com

Most fake

The most impressive fairy tale in primary school textbooks may be "The Flying Antelope". A large group of antelopes were forced to the edge of a cliff by hunters. Under the organization of the leader, the young antelopes stepped on the backs of the old antelopes and jumped to the other side of the cliff to escape, but the old antelopes were willing to fall off the cliff for this.

This painting is not of goral

Fortunately, such a heroic scene will not happen in reality . First, gorals and serows living in dense jungles do not gather in large groups. The "large group" described in "The Flight of the Gorals" will not appear. Second, gorals are good at rock climbing. 60-degree or even steeper slopes are not difficult for them, so there is no need to risk their lives like this.

The distribution of gorals in the woodlands is very sparse. In the effectively protected mountainous area of ​​Om-Koi Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand, the density of gorals is only about 5 per square kilometer . The largest group recorded in the area had only 8 adult gorals and 2 lambs. In India, the largest group of gorals did not exceed 11.

The goral's hooves are very sharp, so as long as they find a little "flat surface", their hooves can step on it like nails . The goral's hooves are "even-toed hooves", with two toes with a wide distance between them, so even if they can't find a flat surface for a while, the goral can directly insert their even-toed hooves into the cracks of the rock wall to stabilize their bodies.

Have you found the Chinese goral (N. griseus) licking salt on the rock wall? | Photo: Ma Wenhu

The most magical

Today's contestants include not only jumpers, but also dancers . Many animals use dance to increase their attractiveness when courting, but the most magical one among them is the sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus).

Sage grouse with "nose hair" | Wikimedia Commons

When courting, sage grouse will also lift and spread their tail feathers to show off, but the "chest-throwing dance" is the only way to attract females. The male sage grouse inhales air while puffing up his chest, causing the two yellow air sacs on his chest to swell like poached eggs. The head of a sage grouse is relatively small, and when the air sacs are inflated, it is difficult for uninformed onlookers to find where its head is at a glance. They may mistake the air sacs for buttocks or even testicles , and the tail feathers for wings, thinking that the bird's posture is too weird.

Girl, look at my tits! | Wikimedia Commons

With the help of flapping wings, the male dances the "chest-throwing dance". The main action is to constantly throw and shake the two large air sacs forward to create a fierce "wave-like" effect, accompanied by a gurgling sound in the throat and a whistle-like explosion sound when the air sacs shrink. The head is thrown back to the shoulders when the air sacs retract, and then the air sacs are sucked up again to repeat the original action. In order to show their extraordinary endurance, this set of courtship dances will be performed for several hours. In this scene, one can't help but sigh: spell one word.

Big husband, cute big breasts | globalzoo / youtube

Jumping in the animal world may be a means of survival for them. For humans, shopping may be one of the hopes for survival. From this perspective, the jumps in shopping apps don’t seem so disgusting. If there are still such pervasive jumps on Double Eleven next year, then we’ll see you next year!

References

[1] Fleas' Spectacular Jumps Start at Their 'Feet,' Study Shows - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/science/15flea.html

Authors: Argus, Young Yellow Chicken, The Man Who Runs an Aquarium, Seafood Knowledge, Yaohua, Brooke, Wang Fang, Greenan

Edit: July

Source of title image: Internet