Geckos can run at speeds of up to 1 meter per second on the surface of the water!
Recently, an international research group published an article in Contemporary Biology that geckos are too large to float on the surface of the water like insects, but at the same time they are too small to tread water with their feet like some lizards. As a result, they run in a unique mixture of surface tension and slapping.
Jasmine Nirody, a biophysicist at Oxford University in the United Kingdom and Rockefeller University in the United States, said: "The size of geckos puts them in a middle ground: they can't generate enough strength to run on the water without sinking, so the fact that they can run across the water is surprising." ”
Flat-tailed geckos are known for their agility. They can climb walls, swing with leaves, and run at high speeds. Scientists have studied the biomechanics behind these physical feats, but how geckos cross the surface of the water remains a mystery to this day.
The study's collaborator, Ardian Jusufi, a biophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems Research in Germany, discovered while working in the jungles of Cambodia that geckos can slide through puddles to avoid predators. This inspired Nirody.
Nirody and colleagues collected some Asian geckos and conducted an experiment in the lab. They made a long water tank, put a wooden board on it, and then changed the water surface tension by adding soap. Then they put the gecko on a wooden board and touched its tail to frighten them. After that, they filmed high-speed video of geckos flying over the water and studied it.
Nirody said that even knowing that geckos are "skilled," researchers were still very surprised at how fast they were speeding across the water. "It's remarkable that they combined a number of ways to accomplish this feat." She said.
Researchers have found that geckos whose legs flap and paddle across the water form air bags that allow most of their bodies to float on the surface. They trot on water as if they were on land, and their waterproof skin and tail also help them glide on the water.
The researchers note that a new understanding of geckos' movements could inspire machine designs, such as the spawning of fast-swimming robots for search and rescue in flooded areas. "Nature has a lot to teach us, and it makes all sorts of amazing machines for us to learn." Nirody said. (Lu Yi)
Related paper information: DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2018.10.064