Scientists in South Africa discover 'leaproach', jumping cockroach with grasshopper-like features

(EndPlay Staff Reports) - Scientists have discovered a new cockroach that's one-fifth legs and has the jump to match.

University of Cape Town professor Mike Picker and former student Jonathan Colville discovered the insect in the Silvermine Nature Reserve in South Africa's Table Mountain National Park. A university press release stated they found it in 2006 while using a net to catch long-tongue flies in sedge meadows.

"Superficially it looked a bit like a cricket, but not quite," Colville, who is now part of the South African National Biodiversity Institute, stated in the release.

What they discovered was it was a cockroach, of the same family as the more common German cockroach, but its body had grasshopper-like features. That included muscular hind legs, which make up 20 percent of its body, bulging eyes with a wider view, and rough-padded "toes" to help with gripping.

This bug also hangs with grasshoppers, living side by side with them on grass stems. The New York Times reported it feeds on grasshopper droppings.

Perhaps its most daunting feature is its jump, estimated at up to 50 body lengths in a single leap. Gawker.com stated that's better than locusts, which can jump 20 times their body length.

The researchers published their findings in the journal Biology Letters .

The "leaproach," as Picker and Colville named it, has leaped into fame as part of the Top 10 New Species for 2011. This list is compiled by Arizona State University's International Institute for Species Exploration.

Americans don't have to worry as of yet. It isn't likely to hop into their cupboards anytime soon.

The species list states the leaproach is native to South Africa's Western Cape Province.

It isn't the only jumping cockroach anyone's ever heard of, though the Cape Town press release states the other is known through the discovery of a 160-million-year-old fossil.