How Do Geckos stick to walls?

Question

Does Van der Wall's force come into play?

Answer 1

Yes, gecko's amazing abilities are an application of Van der Wall's force. Each gecko foot contains half a million tiny hairs, called seta (which are less than a tenth the width of human hair), which in turn have have about a thousand mushroom shaped fibers, called spatulae. The spatulae are so tiny that they get close enough to the molecules in the wall so that the weak attractive force between molecules comes into play. They are actually using molecular bonding to temporarily attach themselves to the wall. Their funny waddling walk is actually caused by the fact that they have to literally detach themselves from the surface with each step. Here's an interesting article describing this phenomenon as well as a more general article about geckos that has a lot of interesting information.

PS I also think that it's a cool way to remember Van der Wall's force because it's the force that keeps geckos on the wall.

Answer 2

Gecko's amazing abilities are an application of Van der Wall's force. Each gecko foot contains half a million tiny hairs, called seta (which are less than a tenth the width of human hair), which in turn have have about a thousand mushroom shaped fibers, called spatulae. The spatulae are so tiny that they get close enough to the molecules in the wall so that the weak attractive force between molecules comes into play. They are actually using molecular bonding to temporarily attach themselves to the wall. Their funny waddling walk is actually caused by the fact that they have to literally detach themselves from the surface with each step.

Answer 3

Gecko's can stick to walls b/c on each of their toes they have microhairs that kind of split at the ends of each microhair. On each microhair there are nanohairs on each microhair, so it can cling to glass, walls, just about anything. A single hair from a gecko's feet is about 200 nanometers wide; a single human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide. But animals like the chamellian has what's called zygodactilic feet.

Answer 4

they have billions of tiny hairs that fom some thing said as a Van der Wall interplay with anyhing it touches. Billions of tiny chemical points of interest enable for the gecko to stay stuck to some thing

Answer 5

Just wondering is totally right. It is because of the Van der Waals force! Man, I wish we had that kind of Jazz!

Answer 6

They has little suck - ion cups on their feet ... God made some real beauty's... I love Geckos...Thanks : )

Answer 7

They have very fine hairs on their foot pads.

Answer 8

little sticky things on their feet

Answer 9

No, they use that stuff on the post-it notes.