Cockroach That Jumps: See Remarkable Video

The remarkable cockroach that jumps has stirred the Internet, in one of the latest sensations of nature.

South African scientists discovered the new breed of cockroaches that jump through the air (see video below). Other cockroaches, those most people know, scurry from place to place, yet this newly discovered cockroaches leap like grasshoppers -- some have dubbed them leaproaches.

The jumps are powered by rapid and synchronous extension of the hind legs that are twice the length of the other legs, the South African researchers said.

The unique cockroaches have legs built to jump and antennae that stabilize the insects after their giant leaps.

The bug, which lives in grasslands in South Africa, eats grasshopper excrement, the researchers said. The cockroach that jumps leaps more than 70 percent of its time, but is known to scurry around like traditional cockroaches. The cockroach that jumps is four-tenths of an inch long, roughly, yet can jump 50 times its length and as far as 20 inches per leap.

The cockroach that jumps was discovered in the Silvermine Nature Reserve in the the Table Mountain National Park.

Researchers, from the University of Cape Town, said the cockroaches' jumping differs from all other extant cockroaches that have a scuttling locomotion.

National Geographic reports that the last known jumping cockroach lived in the late Jurassic period.