As God created each living thing, some were given talents and abilities that amaze and fascinate with their capabilities. When it comes to jumping ability, we have been told for years that the common flea was the champ. The flea is able to exert a force about 135 times its own body weight to project itself over long distances. This is truly amazing since the best an Olympic athlete is able to do is about 2 or 3 times his or her weight. But, God has created another animal that far surpasses humans and fleas as well. That animal is the Froghopper.

The WHAT? Froghopper? Yes, the Froghopper! These lowly insects are really common, and, probably, each person reading this has seen them and watched them jump. Living in the tall grass in meadows, in gardens, and weedy areas is the tiny insect called the Froghopper or, as we know them a little better, the Spittle bug. They are about a quarter of an inch long and are generally green or gray. They produce a small white saliva case on plants in which they lay their eggs and in which the young hide, and this is where they get the name spittle bug. How could they be over looked as a long jump champ? Well, it was thought that they were flying rather than jumping. But, jump they do!

A 6 mm Froghopper can exert a force 400 times its own body weight and throw itself more than 700 mm. This would be the same as an average human leaping over 600 feet. Wow! This was discovered quite by accident by a scientist using a high speed camera in the field when a froghopper walked into the area being photographed and jumped. When this was seen in slow motion, it was observed to be a jump, not a flight, reports Professor Malcolm Burrows of Britain's University of Cambridge, in the journal Nature.

This jumping ability comes not like most animals as they use their legs for leverage to liftoff but from a natural catapult system that God designed in them. In making their spectacular leaps they accelerate to more than 400 times the force of gravity. Humans black out when they experience "G" forces higher than 5 or 6 times. The froghopper is able to jump like this because God created it with the ability to store energy in advance of its jumps. It has two huge muscles that make up about 11% of its body mass.

"These muscles, which power the rear legs, are located in the froghopper's chest. As the insect readies to leap, it tucks up and holds its rear legs in a cocked position on a ridge between one part of a hind leg and another. The rear legs stay locked in this position until the jumping muscles load up with enough energy to break the legs free from the ridge, launching the froghopper into the air," explained Burrows. "When it has enough force, it sort of snaps open, and it does this incredibly fast," he said. In less than a millisecond, the leg extends and accelerates the body at speeds up to 13 feet (4 meters) per second.

Of course, the evolutionist must make sure that God does not get the glory for the Froghopper. As one scientist observed, "Humans probably learned to use catapults a few thousand years ago, but insects like these evolved catapults inside their own bodies hundreds of millions of years ago."

They make statements like this with no qualifications as to how this amazing mechanism can just come about without a designer; they just make the statement that it happened hundred of millions of years ago. They hide in the cloak of time!

I choose to believe that the all-knowing God was the designer of the new long jump champ, The Froghopper. Rt. 1 Box 116A, Belington, WV 26250.

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