Southern California Mite is World's Fastest Land Animal When Speed is Measured in Body Lengths Per Second
Posted on April 29, 2014
A tiny Southern California mite, Paratarsotomus macropalpis, is the world's fastest land animal when the body lengths per second measurement is used. The mite was recently recorded at speeds of 322 body lengths per second. Extrapolated to the size of a human, the mite's speed is equivalent to a person running roughly 1300 miles per hour. The previous record-holder, the Australian tiger beetle, can reach a maximum speed of 171 body lengths per second. A cheetah running at 60 miles per hour reaches 16 body lengths per second.
The research was led by Prof. Jonathan Wright at Pomona College and Samuel Rubin at Pitzer College. The research team used high-speed cameras to record the mites' sprints in the laboratory and in their natural environment.
Rubin says in a statement, "It's so cool to discover something that's faster than anything else, and just to imagine, as a human, going that fast compared to your body length is really amazing. But beyond that, looking deeper into the physics of how they accomplish these speeds could help inspire revolutionary new designs for things like robots or biomimetic devices."
Here is a short video of the rapidly moving mite.
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