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Beetles and humans

BIOMIMICRY

The famous British naturalist, author,

conservationist, and founder of Jersey Zoo,

Gerald Durrell (1925–95), was fond of

explaining, especially on long sea journeys

returning from collecting trips, that

everything invented by humans had

already been invented beforehand by

animals. He recounts in his memoirs

that his audiences rarely believed him,

so he would back up his assertion with

examples of sonar used by bats and

whales, aqualungs and diving bells by

water beetles and water spiders, electricity

by electric eels, and so on. There is little

doubt that many inventions were inspired by

careful observation of nature, nor that humans

and other creatures need to overcome similar

problems in order to survive, whether by

adaptation or by technology. The new science

of biomimetics is simply a formalization of a

process that goes back to the dawn of humanity,

a deliberate attempt to search the natural world

for solutions to problems, chemical substances,

and physical designs that can be replicated or

below | Onymacris

unguicularis (Tenebrionidae)

The Head-Stander Beetle is

a fog basker, meaning it is

able to condense minute

atmospheric water droplets

in the dry Namib desert.

above | Chrysina gloriosa

(Scarabaeidae) The brightly

colored exoskeleton of this

scarab beetle consists of

thousands of prisms, and

could be copied in order

to make reflective surfaces.