Scientists have discovered insects, in the limbs of which there is a real gear train. Earlier it was believed that gears are a purely mechanical and artificial invention of man.
Issus coleoptratus, a species of the Isid family, is found only in the western Palaearctic. They are very tiny and do not grow more than 7 mm in length. Scientists were attracted by the larvae of these insects: on their hind legs they have small growths-gears that cling to each other. Imagine a real mechanism, only 400 micrometers in size, and even created by nature itself!
Using mechanical gears, the insect can send nerve impulses to create roughly equal force: when one leg begins to move, the gears engage, ensuring perfect synchronization. In these insects, the skeleton is used to solve tasks that the nervous system and the brain cannot cope with. We used to think that gears are what we can see in man-made machines. However, we found that we were just looking badly before - Gregory Sutton, study author.
In the natural world, there is no other creature with such a "mechanism". Moreover, adult insects also lose these growths because they cannot maintain the proper rate of regeneration.