http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/the-first-gear-discovered-in-nature-15916433?click=pm_latest It's like a grasshopper that ratchets it's legs up. Here is the gear up close
This is really cool. I was actually more interested in the fact that it was a "prototype for a new type of gear" without getting too much into the "evolution v. other theories" debate, this seems another example of something that people would call "irreducably complex" (like cilia or flagella?)--how does the DNA of a precursor issus nymph happen to mutate into the exact combination required to (if it were in humans) grow a prototype new gearing system in a random person's hip socket? Regardless, thanks for the link. Pretty cool.
If it were humans (or issus nymphs), it would take hundreds of thousands of generations, with predators above in the food chain eating the slower ones to eventually, slowly but surely evolve this gear. I doubt it popped into existence all at once. When speed survives, you'll see optimizations for speed eventually.
what's the initial instance, though? How did the first mutation/evolution turn your hip into a gear precursor that hundreds of thousands of generations of refining later became a prototype, specialized gear? On another random note, I think biomechanics like this are underdeveloped fields of study.
Maybe something harmless like tiny nubs in the hip shell that were allowed to get larger and larger over generations because they didn't harm jumping such as it was in the pre-gear era... then a subset of those with spurs finally got interlocking on a couple of spurs which made them a bit faster... then more spurs interlocked... then more... then refinement like directionality of the spurs improved speed... etc. Also, I agree; biomechanics is totally rad, and often just used in fantasy/SF but totally work exploring.
