Mondo Knows Facts
Geckos climb with van der Waals forces
Each toe pad carries hundreds of thousands of microscopic hairs The hairs split further into nanometre scale tips that stick weakly to any surface through molecular attraction. Summed over a foot, the force holds the animal's weight many times over. Peeling the foot at an angle releases the grip instantly. It sits in Mondo's animals collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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More facts like this
A mantis shrimp punches faster than a speeding bulletThe club reaches prey in about three milliseconds and boils water brieflyGeckos stick to smooth glass using intermolecular forcesMillions of microscopic setae on gecko toes create van der Waals adhesion.A wood frog survives with two thirds of its body frozenIt stops breathing and its heart halts while ice forms around the cellsSome frogs sit out the Arctic winter as iceThe North American tree frog tolerates freezing for weeksThe tuatara has a third eye on its headThe parietal eye has a lens and retina but only senses light levelsCrocodiles replace every tooth in their jawsLoose teeth are swapped for new ones from a reserve battery in the jaw
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Tags: geckos, adhesion, physics
Geckos climb with van der Waals forces: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Each toe pad carries hundreds of thousands of microscopic hairs. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a animals fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Animals shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.