Buzzwords
Flea-flickers and football fields
May Berenbaum
I
don’t know who first came up with the
idea of measuring lengths in units of
football fields, but I imagine it was an en-
tomologist. Football fields are the preferred
units for expressing equivalent distances that
insects, particularly fleas, could jump if they
were the size of a man. No sexist intent,
here; for some reason, these equivalencies
always seem to be measured with men in
mind. (My personal theory is that only a guy
would care if he could outjump a flea if he
were the same size as a flea.) Football fields
are routinely used to illustrate the prodigious
athletic capabilities of insects. According to
the standard text for introductory entomol-
ogy, Borror, DeLong, and Triplehorn (1981),
“When it comes to jumping, many insects put
our best Olympic athletes to shame; many
grasshoppers can easily jump a distance of
1 meter, which would be comparable to a
man broad-jumping the length of a football
field.”
Information in the 1990 Guinness Book
of Records, proclaiming Pulex irritans the
“champion jumper among fleas,” reported,
“In one American experiment carried out
in 1910 a specimen allowed to leap at will
performed a long jump of 330 mm (13 in)
and a high jump of 197 mm (7.75 in) (pg
41).” These statistics in turn inspired some
calculations on the Bugman Bug Trivia
website (http://www.bugs.org/BUGQuiz/an-
swers/flea_answer.shtml):
“So, let’s do the math... after scouring our ex-
tensive piles of resources, the best estimate
of flea length we could find was 1/16 to 1/8
of an inch. So let’s take the large estimate
(‘cause that’s more conservative). 1/8” is
about 3 mm. So, a flea can jump about
110 times its length. Now, for example,
if you are 5 feet tall (or long) and could
jump 110 times your length, you could
jump about 550 feet, which is about 183
yards or nearly 2 football fields!”
132
What was
that play again?
This flea-flicking
business has me
running in circles...
or is that jumping?!
I suppose these analogies are helpful to Alexander references the apparently popular
sports fans, but I have no clear concept of comparison equating a flea’s 30-centimeter
how long a football field is (having attend- jump to “a man jumping over St. Paul’s Ca-
ing only one and a half football games in thedral” (Milius 2008), which for American
my entire life, both of which took place stay-at-homes is unenlightening at best.
over thirty years ago). Moreover, “football But the football field as a unit of measure
field” as a unit means different things in is so firmly entrenched in the popular con-
different countries. As I understand it, Ca- science that occasionally it serves as a unit
nadian football is played on a field that’s 110 of height—e.g., at “Super bugs? Whimpy
yards long (which means that their football [sic] humans?” (http://www.ftexploring.
fields have been larger than U.S. fields for com/think/superbugs_p1.html). “Fleas can
longer than their dollars have been). And jump over 80 times their own height, the
“football” in Europe refers to soccer and I equivalent of a 6 foot tall human jumping
have no clue how long a European soccer over a building 480 feet (more than 1 and
field is, nor whether European fleas make a half football fields) high!” But short of
the conversion. a seismic cataclysm, when can people see
Admittedly, not all of the jump analogies football fields stacked vertically?
revolve around football. Whereas football The problem with all of these calcula-
field units seem well suited to illustrate the tions, of course, is that they fail to take into
length of a flea’s broad jump, they would account the surface area/volume ratio. Small
seem far less useful to illustrate the relative organisms, such as insects, live in a world
height of a flea jump. Indeed, more often dominated by surface forces. The bigger the
than not, jump-height equivalents are of- organism, the greater is its volume (which
ten measured in units of buildings, usually is a function of length times width times
relatively famous ones. The utility of such height) relative to its surface area (which
comparisons depends on one’s familiarity is a function of length times width). Cubic
with scenic landmarks; in an article about dimensions scale up faster than do squared
the Olympic prowess of animals, R. McNeill dimensions, so, as organisms increase in size,
American Entomologist  •  Fall 2008
surface area can’t keep pace with volume.
Muscle strength increases with cross-section-
al area, so a small organism (like a flea) has
muscles with a relatively high cross-sectional
area moving a relatively small volume. The
muscles themselves aren’t stronger—they’re
just doing smaller jobs relative to their size.
A six-foot flea would have about the same
muscle strength as a six-foot man, so in all
probability, it wouldn’t be able to leap over
any goalposts unless they were knocked flat
and lying on the ground.
In fact, insect muscles might not even be
as strong as vertebrate muscles on an abso-
lute basis. As the great twentieth-century
biologist J.B.S. Haldane famously wrote in
his essay “On Being the Right Size,”
“…the height to which an animal can jump
is more nearly independent of its size than
proportional to it. A flea can jump about
two feet, a man about five. To jump a given
height, if we neglect the resistance of air,
requires an expenditure of energy propor-
tional to the jumper’s weight. But if the
jumping muscles form a constant fraction
of the animal’s body, the energy developed
per ounce of muscle is independent of the
size, provided it can be developed quickly
enough in the small animal. As a matter
of fact an insect’s muscles, although they
can contract more quickly than our own,
appear to be less efficient; as otherwise a
flea or grasshopper could rise six feet into
the air.”
Although insect muscles may be less ef-
ficient, they’re still capable of some amazing
feats. Some insects have muscles that func-
tion in ways unlike any muscles humans have
(or any other organism, for that matter).
Odontomachus bauri is one of a group of
ants collectively called trap-jaw ants; these
ants are capable of snapping their jaws shut
with incredible speed. Using an extremely
sophisticated high-speed camera recording
at 100,000 frames per second, my col-
league Andy Suarez and his collaborators
measured, on average, closing speed rang-
ing from 35.5 to 64.3 meters per second
and accelerations of 100,000 g (Patek et al.
2006). O. bauri can shut its mouth in less
than 100 nanoseconds. These investigators
also determined that the jaws exert a force
of 47 to 69 milliNewtons when they close,
which is approximately 370-500 times their
own body weight. The speed of the jaws
changes through the arc of closing, with the
mandibles slowing down past the midline,
possibly to reduce the risk of smashing them
if they hit each other.
This spectacular mandibular prowess
raises the question as to why any organism
has a need to snap its jaws shut with such
force and speed. These remarkably versatile
ants can use their trapjaws to ensnare prey,
American Entomologist  •  Volume 54, Number 3
but they can also, by slapping their jaws his physical prowess, maybe a comparison
against a hard object (such as an intruder) with the trapjaw ant will shut him up—but
or against the ground, propel themselves into even if it does, it’ll likely take longer than
the air. The bouncer defense jumps, launched 100 nanoseconds.
off an intruder, can reach 40 cm horizontally,
and the escape jumps, launched from the References
ground, cover shorter distances but greater Borror, D. J., D. M. DeLong, C.A. Triplehorn,
heights, up to 8 cm. Even more impressive 1981. An Introduction to the Study of Insects.
than the distances covered, though, is the New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
fashion in which they’re covered. They don’t McFarlan D, N. D. McWhirter, D. A. Boeh, 1990.
just slap their mandibles against a surface; Guinness Book of World Records. Sterling
a stereotyped set of behaviors sends the ant Publishers.
spinning head over all six heels, with a spin Milius, S., 2008. Built for speed. Science News
rate that can peak at more than 60 revolu- 174 (4): http://www.sciencenews.org/view/fea-
tions per second. ture/id/34758/title/Built_for_Speed
One wonders what football analogy can Patek, S. N., J. E. Baio, B.L. Fisher, A.V. Suarez,
be used to place that feat in human terms. The 2006. Multifunctionality and mechanical
world record for “fastest spin on ice skates” origins: Ballistic jaw propulsion in trap-jaw
set by Natalia Kanounnikova at Rockefeller ants. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103:12787
Center in New York City, is 308 revolutions -12792.
per minute. During jumps, ice skaters can
reach 420 rpm, or about 7 revolutions per May Berenbaum is a pro-
second. But that’s about one-ninth the spin fessor and head of the De-
rate of a trapjaw ant. Football players don’t partment of Entomology,
routinely spin, at least by design, but in terms University of Illinois, 320
of spinning things on a football field, even Morrill Hall, 505 South
the football doesn’t measure up to a trapjaw Goodwin Avenue, Urbana,
ant. Typically, a tossed football manages IL 61801. Currently, she
about 8-10 revolutions per second, with an is studying the chemical
acceleration of about 8 m/second. So, the aspects of interaction between herbivorous
next time a football player is bragging about insects and their hosts. B
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