is one of the fastest insects, running at a maximum speed of 51 inches per second, or 2.9 miles per hour. This may seem slow, but consider the rate compared to body length. The American cockroach runs a distance of about thirtyfour times its body length of 1.5 inches in one second. This is equivalent to a coyote with a body length (excluding the tail) of 2.8 feet running 65 miles per hour. I doubt coyotes can run that fast. (I once clocked a panicked one going 45 miles per hour trying to outdistance my pursuing car as it ran along a ditch bank parallel to the road I was driving on.) It seems, then, that on the basis of a fair comparison, the American cockroach is probably a faster runner than a panicked coyote. Keep in mind that some of the thousands of cockroach species that live outdoors—and surely have many enemies other than irate householders—run at least as fast as and perhaps even faster than the pestiferous American cockroach.
A sudden leap into the air is another good way to escape from a predator. It is not surprising, then, that many different kinds of insects, members of several unrelated groups, have evolved this escape tactic independently of one another—and have jumping apparatuses fashioned in quite different ways, and even from different body structures. Grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids are closely related and probably inherited their jumping hind legs from a common ancestor. But fleas, flea beetles, and certain relatives of the aphids and cicadas, such as leafhoppers and planthoppers, have leaping hind legs that obviously evolved independently of each other and may be quite different in design. Click beetles and springtails, close relatives of the insects that I discuss below, leap into the air without using their legs.
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