Crab and Locust Bones Optimized For Their Respective Functions

New research on the bone designs of crabs and locusts—whose skeletons are on the outside—has found that their high-tech composite bone material known as cuticle is formed into optimal geometries for their respective uses. The crab bone which the researchers analyzed undergoes both bending and compression and the bone’s design was found to be “an ideal compromise to resist these two types of loading.” The locust bone that was analyzed, on the other hand, mostly undergoes bending and was found to be “optimized for this loading mode.” Endoskeleton bones, on other hand, were not found to be optimized for these structural functions.