Engineering Limpets
New research at Queen Mary has found that limpet teeth are extremely strong and resemble structures we use for building aircraft parts. Limpets use these impressive teeth to scrape their food source, algae, from tough rock surfaces. The teeth are formed from a mineral called goethite- a mineral commonly used in pigments of cave paintings- which is made up of tiny fibres that combine in a complicated way to reinforce the material. Limpets, therefore, are excellent engineers of robust materials! Scientists used a very fine microscopic technique to discover this feature, and published their findings in Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
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