Record #00416Nature archive
The meadow froghopper (Philaenus spumarius) can jump to a height of around 115 times its own body length. Cambridge zoologist Malcolm Burrows documented jumps up to 700 mm in high-speed studies of insects averaging approximately 6.1 mm long.
Current Record
about115body lengths
Current record value
Froghoppers use a catapult-like hind-leg mechanism. Muscles load energy before take-off and release it through specialized joint structures, allowing an insect only millimetres long to achieve unusually large jumps relative to its body size.
Burrows's 2003 Nature paper reported a mean adult length around 6.1 mm, mean body mass 12.3 mg and jumps up to 700 mm. A separate 2006 Journal of Experimental Biology study used imaging at up to 8,000 frames per second and reported a peak acceleration of 5,400 m/s² and take-off speed of 4.7 m/s in the best jumps. Parameters are attributed to their respective studies.
The record conclusion has sufficient verification support.
Basis: comparison of consistent primary data
Burrows's 2003 Nature original paper reports body length 6.1±0.2 mm, body mass 12.3±0.7 mg and maximum 700-mm jumps. His separate 2006 Journal of Experimental Biology paper explicitly reports 700 mm or 115 body lengths, best-jump acceleration 5,400 m/s² and velocity 4.7 m/s. Publication dates are not experimental achievement dates.
The approximately 115-body-length performance is a published experimental value, not proof that all animal species have been exhaustively tested under the same protocol. Exact experiment dates were not confirmed, so no publication date is used as the entry achievement date.
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