Locusts use vision to find foothold

CAMBRIDGE, England, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- High-speed video has shown some insects use vision rather than touch to find footholds, scientists at England's University of Cambridge said.

The researchers filmed desert locusts stepping along the rungs of a miniature ladder much the same way mammals would, the university said in a release Monday.

The research sheds light on insects' ability to perform complex tasks, such as visually-guided limb control, usually associated with mammals, said university researcher Jeremy Niven.

"This is another example of insects performing a behavior we previously thought was restricted to relatively big-brained animals with sophisticated motor control such as humans, monkeys or octopuses," he said.

The research deepens the scientific understanding of the neural circuits of locusts, which has been a model organism for studying limb control in robotics for the last four decades, Niven said.