Page 234 - The Microworld Miracle

Robot manufacturers take
the superior designs of
living creatures as inspi-
ration for new designs.
There are now robots that
were designed by imitat-
ing ants.

only a perfect creation that could inspire robot manufacturers.
Massachusetts University biologist Elizabeth Brainerd and her
team, in partnership with Harvard and Würzburg Universities, in-
vestigated the way ants and bees can walk upside down on ceilings,
or vertically on walls, and arrived at interesting conclusions. They
filmed ants and bees moving quickly along glass surfaces, and

found that the sticky features on the feet of these insects were dif-
ferent from those of other animals. They cited the gecko, a species
of lizard, as an example. With every step, Geckos scrape the sticky
pads on their feet along the surface they are walking on, which
THE MICROWORLD MIRACLE As Brainerd comments:
leads to very slow, deliberate movement. The system possessed by
insects, on the other hand, exhibits a much more dynamic structure.

The feet of ants and bees are surprisingly complex structures, says
Brainerd. Each foot, viewed through a microscope, has a pair of
claws that resemble a bull's horns, with a sticky footpad called an

232 arolium positioned between the claws. When the insects run along