(ORDO NEWS) — Scientists from the University of Cambridge (UK) found that geckos are the largest creatures in nature that can climb vertical walls.
These lizards are known for their ability to stick to almost any surface, making them fantastic climbers. The thing is that the paws of geckos are covered with many microscopic hairs.
Each such hair is divided into smaller threads, so tiny that they interact with the surface through intermolecular attraction, or the so-called van der Waals forces.
It is thanks to billions of tiny hairs that geckos have fantastic abilities to stay on any surface. However, this partly applies to other animals with similar abilities, such as spiders, cockroaches, beetles, bats, frogs and some others.
The British measured the size of the legs of 225 animals, from ticks to geckos, and compared these sizes with their body area. Applying this proportion to a person, it turns out that in order to gain the ability to climb a vertical surface, the surface of the palms and feet must be at least 40% of the human body.
In other words, a person must either press against the wall with 80% of his body, or have giant heels and palms. And if you set out to make incredibly sticky miracle shoes in which you can walk on the walls, its size will be 145 according to the European size grid!
Taking into account the ratio of body area to the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe legs, the scientists found that the gecko has the maximum possible body size for moving along vertical surfaces in this way.
Any other animal of a larger size will no longer be able to boast of similar abilities, because physically it does not have such large paws that could provide this.
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