Credit: Sheila Patek and collaborators, UC Berkeley
Shown are the mandibles of the trap-jaw ant, Odontomachus bauri, filmed at 50,000 frames per second. The video is being shown 1,667 times slower than real time. A new study has shown that the mandibles of O. bauri can close at speeds of 35 to 64 meters per second, or 78 to 145 miles per hour - an action researchers say is the fastest self-powered predatory strike in the animal kingdom.
