The powerful, hammer-like rounded claws of the mantis shrimp are incredibly strong, making them ideal for cracking open the hard shells of clams and crabs (its favored prey), and for warding off predators. Now those claws are also inspiring scientists keen on building super-strong materials to make tougher body armor and football helmets.
There are two types of mantis shrimp (a.k.a. stomatopods): “spearers” (that spear the prey) and “smashers” (that smash the prey) A team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, and Purdue University has been studying the multilayered structure of the “smasher” variety of this colorful creature, and recently discovered a unique herringbone structure in the outer layer. They describe their work in a new paper in Advanced Materials.
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