Locomotion by jumping in the Mediterranean fruit-fly larva Ceratitis capitata

Abstract

IN contrast to terrestrial locomotion in animals with rigid internal or external skeletons (such as insects or vertebrates), caterpillar crawling is slow and energetically costly1. Biomechanical constraints may be responsible for the high cost of crawling locomotion1, but the caterpillar body plan, which uses hydraulic-based skeletal and locomotory systems, does not necessarily preclude the possibility of high-#150;speed locomotion as has been suggested1. I report here how the last-instar larva of the Mediterranean fruit-fly jumps. Jumping increases the maggot's speed to 0.5 m s-1 per jump, or by 200-fold over crawling. Jumping occurs at a stage when the maggot is particularly vulnerable to parasitization and predation. The fly larva provides the only known example of jumping by a soft-bodied legless organism. © 1992 Nature Publishing Group.