Mechanical Engineers Discovered How the Arapaima Becomes Piranha-Proof

A recent article in Advanced Engineering Materials that has been reported all over the place on the web looked at the scales of Arapaima gigas, a freshwater fish that lives in the Amazon River and is able to successfully defend itself from the bite of the piranha.

Researchers found that the scales of the arapaima are brilliantly constructed with an incredibly hard, outer and inner, mineralized layers sandwiched around much more flexible, collagen fibers stacked in opposite directions providing a marvelous flexibility.

The video above mentions (at about 0:38) the possibility of extending this concept to produce flexible ceramic materials.

Nature, man, she continues to reveal amazing secrets.

Here are four different reports on the research though the original article is thankfully not behind a subscription wall:

• Jacobs School (where the research is being conducted)
• livescience.com
• sciencemag.org
• neatorama.com