Because sometimes scuttling just isn’t enough. Wired gets up close and personal with the cockroach that, like its cricket cousins, jumps where it needs to go – and then some:
“Other cockroaches that live in the same environment haven’t bothered to evolve an ability to jump, but this small cockroach has quite literally made the leap,” said zoologist Mike Picker of the University of Cape Town, leader of a Dec. 6 Biology Letters study detailing the leaproach’s hopping mechanics.
…
Picker and his colleague Jonathan Colville discovered the leaproach in 2006 as the insects hopped around a field of sedge grass in South Africa. It wasn’t until 2010, however, that the taxonomic world accepted the new species, named Saltoblattella montistabularis.
The new study reveals the leaproach uses its legs much like grasshoppers do, and yet — ounce for ounce — the leaproach far out-jumps locusts. While a grasshopper can jump up to 20 body lengths, a leaproach can sail forward 48 body lengths.
…
The jumping motion likely didn’t evolve to avoid predators, although that may be a benefit. More likely, says Picker, it helps leaproaches spread out to find mates and track down their favorite food: Protein-packed grasshopper poop.
Delightful. Video of the roaches jumping at the link.