This Ant is Dead.

Move over mantis shrimp, you've lost the title. The new fastest creature in the animal kingdom is the trap-jaw ant. They lock their mandibles open like a crossbow and trip a latch to unleash up to 64 m/s of fury on their prey.

I know, its not all that interesting, but just imagine the lame scientist studying these guys who suddenly realized they were world champions. Stay with me, it gets better. These ants close their mouths so fast that they can use it to propel themselves as a defence mechanism. They just bite the ground and depending on the angle, they fly either up or backwards. Watch the video, its worth it. Something about it really reminds me of that trampoline bear video. Its probably the slow motion lifeless animals hitting the ground that does it.

Now I don't know about you but ever since I saw 'Ants' on insect invasion week a while ago I have a real problem when I see like 1,000 ants. Knowing that they can bite and 'jump' like this, you might think I'm a little nervous. But there's comfort here because the ants are physically incapable of biting us. We're so big and they're so light, it's pretty much just like biting the ground and they get shot backwards. Yeah, I'm sleeping fine.

• Ant's super-fast bite is a built-in 'ejector seat' - life - 21 August 2006 - New Scientist