>> It turns out the cautious approach wasn’t necessary. The roaches that ran headlong into the wall could make the upward shift just as quickly — in about 75 milliseconds — the researchers found.<p>The opposite is also true though- the dumb, headlong-crash approach isn't necessary either, since it's not faster than the cautious approach.<p>I think what the article is really saying is that, absent a method to make the cautious approach available, then the dumb approach is good enough.<p>However, the cautious approach might be evidence of a capacity for more complex behaviours when necessary, the absence of which can significantly hinder the animal's (or, indeed, the robot's) versatility in other situations, besides climbing a wall quickly.<p>In other words, maybe cockroaches are hard to hit not because they can run headlong at a wall without slowing down but because they have the choice of not doing so when needed.<p>Which in turn means that robots that can only scale a wall by running blindly at it will still not be as good as cockroaches in tasks other than climbing walls.