Abstract
Living organisms use stingers that vary in length L over eight orders of magnitude, from a few tens of nanometres to several metres, across a wide array of biological taxa. Despite the extreme variation in size, their structures are strikingly similar. However, the mechanism responsible for this remarkable morphological convergence remains unknown. Using basic physical arguments and biomimetic experiments, we reveal an optimal design strategy that links their length, base diameter d0, Young’s modulus E and friction force per unit area μp0. This principle can be framed simply as \({d}_{0} \approx {(\mu {p}_{0}/E)}^{1/3}L\). Existing data from measurements on viruses, algae, marine invertebrates, terrestrial invertebrates, plants, terrestrial vertebrates, marine vertebrates—as well as man-made objects such as nails, needles and weapons—are consistent with our predictions. Our results highlight the evolutionary adaptation of mechanical traits to the constraints imposed by friction, elastic stability and cost.
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Data availability
Source data are available in Supplementary Table 1. All other data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Change history
15 February 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0996-4
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by two research grants (17587 and 13166) from Villum Fonden.
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K.H.J. designed the research. A.H.C. and K.H.J. derived the model. K.S.H., K.P. and J.K. performed experiments. K.H.J., K.P. and J.K. collected and analysed data. K.H.J. wrote the manuscript with support from K.P. and J.K.
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Peer review information Nature Physics thanks Douglas Holmes, Hamed Rajabi and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Supplementary Fig. 1, Table 1 and refs. 1–55.
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Jensen, K.H., Knoblauch, J., Christensen, A.H. et al. Universal elastic mechanism for stinger design. Nat. Phys. 16, 1074–1078 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0930-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0930-9
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