We present you to the Mystrium camillae, or a variant of dracula ant, a species that inhabits Australia and Southeast Asia, and which has been proclaimed as The animal with the fastest movement on the entire planet Earth. The secret is in its jaw, a part of its body that meets special conditions capable of functioning as a powerful spring that serves to defend itself against attacks from other insects.
The fastest animal on Earth
Its small tweezers have the perfect shape to be able to perform a movement similar to that of a pair of scissors. Unlike other ants, this mandible does not bite to catch and block its prey, but instead slides its pincers over each other to launch its catch at full speed. Scientists from the University of Illinois, who are the ones who have studied the case with high-speed cameras (taking images at 450.000 images per second), compare this movement with the snap of fingers.
And it is that the ant closes its pincers for about 3 seconds to store strength before making the blow. This movement resulting from crossing its pincers reaches 320 kilometers per hour, a gesture 5.000 times faster than the blink of an eye. To give you an idea, the cheetah reaches a speed of 96 kilometers per hour in its displacement, so technically we are facing the animal with the fastest movement on Earth.
A movement of 23 microseconds
Experts have needed a high-speed camera to be able to discover exactly what happens in that fraction of a second. And it is that the spring movement occurs in just 23 microseconds, an incredible time if we take into account that other insects with a similar speed are termites, which have a similar jaw that activates the mechanism in 0,025 milliseconds.
The secret is in the changes in morphology
This study has made it possible to demonstrate how small changes in the morphology of the insect allow incredibly different results, as can be the case of two almost identical ants with different morphology in their jaws. So now you know, the next time you see an ant (obviously it will be very difficult for you to run into one of these), think that if it weren't for its size it could throw you up the nearest concrete wall at a speed that you couldn't even find out what happened. Go with the bugs...