Role of legs and foot adhesion in salticid spiders jumping from smooth surfaces.

Many spiders and insects can perform rapid jumps from smooth plant surfaces. Here, we investigate how jumping spiders (Pseudeuophrys lanigera and Sitticus pubescens) avoid slipping when accelerating. Both species differed in the relative contribution of leg pairs to the jump.

Froghoppers jump from smooth plant surfaces by piercing them with sharp spines.

Attachment mechanisms used by climbing animals facilitate their interactions with complex 3D environments and have inspired novel types of synthetic adhesives. Here we investigate one of the most dynamic forms of attachment, used by jumping insects living on plants. Froghopper insects can perform explosive jumps with some of the highest accelerations known among animals.

Jumping without slipping: leafhoppers (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) possess special tarsal structures for jumping from smooth surfaces.

Many hemipteran bugs can jump explosively from plant substrates, which can be very smooth. We therefore analysed the jumping performance of froghoppers ( Aphrophoridae) and leafhoppers ( Cicadellidae) taking off from smooth (glass) and rough (sandpaper, 30 µm asperity size) surfaces. On glass, the propulsive hind legs of froghoppers slipped, resulting in uncontrolled jumps with a fast forward spin, a steeper angle and only a quarter of the velocity compared with jumps from rough surfaces.

Inhomogeneous fluids of colloidal hard dumbbells: fundamental measure theory and Monte Carlo simulations.

Recently, a density functional theory for hard particles with shape anisotropy was developed, the extended deconvolution fundamental measure theory (edFMT). We apply edFMT to hard dumbbells, arguably the simplest non-convex shape and readily available experimentally in the form of colloids. We obtain good agreement between edFMT and Monte Carlo simulations for fluids of dumbbells in a slit and for the same system under gravity.