Geckos glide, crash-land, but don’t fall thanks to tail

A scientific study published in Nature Communications Biology shows that geckos are capable of gliding. In the publication titled Tails stabilize landing of gliding geckos crashing head-first into tree trunks, the authors present footage showing that geckos with no major specializations for flight are in fact capable gliders. Experiments with a gecko-inspired robot confirm the reptile’s locomotion abilities are not entirely down to its feet. The tail plays just as much a pivotal role, the team from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Siena College in New York, and the University of California at Berkeley discovered.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft