Natures wonders: uncrushable ironclad beetle (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, October 21, 2020, 19:36 (1282 days ago) @ David Turell

Built with a very hard outer skeleton:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/diabolical-ironclad-beetle-exoskeleton-armor-imposs...

"The diabolical ironclad beetle is like a tiny tank on six legs.

"This insect’s rugged exoskeleton is so tough that the beetle can survive getting run over by cars, and many would-be predators don’t stand a chance of cracking one open. Phloeodes diabolicus is basically nature’s jawbreaker.

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"The diabolical ironclad beetle, which dwells in desert regions of western North America, has a distinctly hard-to-squish shape. “Unlike a stink beetle, or a Namibian beetle, which is more rounded … it’s low to the ground [and] it’s flat on top,” says David Kisailus, a materials scientist at the University of California, Irvine. In compression experiments, Kisailus and colleagues found that the beetle could withstand around 39,000 times its own body weight. That would be like a person shouldering a stack of about 40 M1 Abrams battle tanks.

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"This toughness makes the diabolical ironclad beetle pretty predator-proof. An animal might be able to make a meal out of the beetle by swallowing it whole, Kisailus says. “But the way it’s built, in terms of other predation — let’s say like a bird that’s pecking at it, or a lizard that’s trying to chew on it — the exoskeleton would be really hard” to crack.

"That hard exterior is also a nuisance for insect collectors. The diabolical ironclad beetle is notorious among entomologists for being so fantastically durable that it bends the steel pins usually used to mount insects for display, says entomologist Michael Caterino of Clemson University in South Carolina. But “the basic biology of this thing is not particularly well-known,” he says. “I found it fascinating” to learn what makes the beetle so indestructible.

"The possibility of using beetle-inspired designs for sturdier airplanes and other structures is intriguing, Caterino adds."

Comment: another example of the possible use of ecomimetics. The question for me is what need caused this design. Darwin theory would want to know what caused this adaptation? My answer is the designer designs what He wants, as many designs in evolution show, appearing without need, as in the unwarranted/unreasonable appearance of humans.