A new study at the University of Portsmouth has revealed that the strongest material on earth is the tooth of a limpet; the sea creature that clings to rocks has fibres of a mineral in its teeth that have evolved to form super-strong structures. The shellfish requires extremely strong teeth to stop it from being washed out to sea with the tide.
Lead researcher Professor Asa Barbar said that ‘Nature is a wonderful source of inspiration for structures that have excellent mechanical properties. All the things we observe around us, such as trees, the shells of sea creatures and the limpet teeth studied in this work, have evolved to be effective at what they do.’
Until now, scientists believed that spider silk was the strongest biological material because of the potential applications in products from bullet-proof vests to computer electronics, but limpets have teeth that contain fibres of goethite, which ‘are just the right size to make up a resilient composite structure.’ Prof Barbar added that ‘this discovery means that the fibrous structures found in limpet teeth could be mimicked and used in high-performance engineering applications, such as Formula 1 racing cars, the hulls of boats, and aircraft structures.’