Off Topic, but vaguely related: Fastest muscle contraction in the animal kingdom

[DanInSD]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17484183/from/RS.2/

The world's most explosive tongue
Salamander can extend its tongue half its body length in 7 milliseconds

By Ker Than
Staff Writer

The giant palm salamander of Central America shoots out its tongue with more instantaneous power than any known muscle in the animal kingdom, a new study finds.
...

[justinl]

mmm... i dunno. watts/kg muscle is certainly a suspicious way to express force. *researches...*

[DanInSD]

It's "power density", so energy/(time * mass); or stated otherwise, "energy per unit mass per unit time".

[Msby12]

ya gotta remember, mantis shrimp are underwater, which has more resistance than air, so a strike out of water should be faster

[DanInSD]

This wasn't meant as a comparison, purely a topic of scientific interest that seemed vaguely appropriate to the forum. Note that they don't understand the trigger mechanism, which Dr. Roy discovered on stomatopods to be a unique hyperbolic paraboloid structure on the raptorial appendages.

[matter1331]

I was under the impression mantis don't have "muscles" as we know them, and that it's more along the lines of a turgor system.

[justinl]

hehehe now calling all biophysicists...

I dunno i was just a lil suspicious because theree are no citations and they use the term "scientists." not Dr so and so in affiliation with whositwhatsit. Plus it's the media. Ive lost much of my respect and trust in the media in general.

[DanInSD]

No, definitely muscles. See: http://sciencematters.berkeley.edu/a...ue6/story1.php