Most poeple would jump and flip if they saw a spider, but now scientists at University of Manchester are training a spider to jump and leap between platform, so that they can record the video to analyse how it manages to jump up to six times of its body length from a standing position. In comparison, a human can jump only about 1.5 of its body length. The question is why are they doing so? Guess what, they are going to create an army of spiders!
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Yes, the engineers are building an army of agile micro-robots that can hunt pests so that farmers would no longer need to use toxic chemicals as pesticides. So spiders are made to jump and the footage are captured in high resolution 3D. But how will they make spiders jump at their will ? It wasn’t easy. Most spiders preferred to wander away from the platforms whenever they were supposed to take off, while others sat clueless. But after weeks of coaxing, arachnid Kim finally began to jump from one ledge to another and scientists could finally record, monitor and make analysis.
video courtsey: University of Manchester Media Relations
It took them a long time to keep Kim forward and backward on the ledge to give the idea of jumping across the ledge and not just tempt her by keeping a food on the other ledge and make her jump, because that would only produce a predatory jump from her and not the leap that uses her full potential. Kim belongs to a species of jumping robot known as “Phidippus regius” or “Regal Jumping spider”.
Scientists have known for a long time that spiders use their internal hydraulic pressure to extend their legs. The study will be published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
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