Deconstructing the design of a biological material

By identifying the functional conflicts in its design, the cuticle of arthropods can be shown to cope with IR and UV irradiation in the same manner as our technology—by controlling spectral properties (transmission and reflection). However, the skeletal properties of cuticle are integrated with demands for sensory transmission, movement, etc, by controlling the local properties of the material rather than by changing global parameters (which would be the technical solution). On the basis of this study, the biomimetic similarity of cuticle with technology is only about 20%, suggesting that we can learn from the design of arthropod cuticle.