Leap of faith: Science explores why squirrels are such good jumpers
Biomechanics is the study of how living things move through the world. In Hunt’s case, that means studying fox squirrels,Hunt and his collaborators conducted three experiments. All involved convincing squirrels on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley — where he was a graduate student — to leap from Point A to Point B, while their movements were recorded on high-speed cameras. The distances ranged from two feet to five feet.
In the second experiment, the launching perch was even more compliant — bendy — along its entire length. In the third experiment, the gap was widened and a wall was placed parallel to the direction of travel. Most impressive was how the squirrels used the wall. They would rotate their bodies, align their feet with the wall, then bounce off the wall before landing on the perch, a move Hunt likened to parkour.
If they were coming in too slowly, they would bounce off the wall to pick up speed. If they were coming in hot, they would bounce off the wall to scrub some speed.“They have a couple different capabilities that make them very intriguing,” Hunt said. “One is their athleticism, their ability to generate these big forces with their hind limbs, propelling themselves in the air in very controlled ways, to jump and move on the target, and move quickly through a challenging environment.
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