A flipped beetle launches itself airborne faster than a jet fighter accelerates

Click beetles store elastic energy in a spring-loaded hinge between their head and thorax, then release it in under a millisecond to snap their body straight and flip into the air to escape predators or right themselves. The acceleration briefly exceeds 300 times the force of gravity, among the fastest self-powered movements recorded in any animal.

— Ophelia Bolmin et al., Mechanisms for High-Power, Rapid Self-Righting Motion in Click Beetles — Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2019

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