A study found that flies, mice, and humans exhibit a similar walking pattern despite vastly different body structures.

What it means

A new study published in PNAS by researchers from the University of Cologne, among others, demonstrates that fruit flies, mice, and humans all use a similar foot-placement control strategy to maintain stable walking, despite having radically different body plans and numbers of legs. By analyzing natural variability in locomotion data from each species, they found a shared underlying algorithm that prioritizes foot placement for balance and stability, revealing a conserved principle across 500 million years of evolution.

Accuracy & sourcesGrounded

The claim is solid, grounded in a peer-reviewed paper in PNAS (a top-tier journal) titled 'Foot placement control underlies stable locomotion across species'. The Phys.org article is an accurate secondary report on that primary research, and the University of Cologne press release confirms the key finding with direct quotes from the researchers.

How new

The underlying study was published in PNAS in October 2025, but this wave of coverage (including the Phys.org article and university press release) is genuinely new, from September 21, 2026.

Past coverage