School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006, P. R. China.
Functional Morphology and Biomechanics, Zoology Department, Kiel University, Am Botanischen Garten 9, 24118 Kiel, Germany.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 Mar 16;14(10):12911-12919. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c00431. Epub 2022 Mar 8.
Fibrous surfaces in nature have already exhibited excellent functions that are normally ascribed to the synergistic effects of special structures and material properties. The honey bee tongue, foraging liquid food in nature, has a unique segmented surface covered with dense hairs. Since honey bees are capable of using their tongue to adapt to possibly the broadest range of feeding environments to exploit every possible source of liquids, the surface properties of the tongue, especially the covering hairs, would likely represent an evolutionary optimization. In this paper, we show that their tongue hairs are stiff and hydrophobic, the latter of which is highly unexpected as the structure is designed for liquid capturing. We found that such hydrophobicity can prevent those stiff hairs from being adhered to the soft tongue surface, which could significantly enhance the deformability of the tongue when honey bees feed at various surfaces and promote their adaptability to different environments. These findings bridge the relationship between surface wettability and structural characteristics, which may shed new light on designing flexible microstructured fiber systems to transport viscous liquids.
自然界中的纤维表面已经展现出了出色的功能，这些功能通常归因于特殊结构和材料特性的协同作用。蜜蜂的舌头用于在自然界中觅食液体食物，它具有独特的分段表面，表面覆盖着密集的毛发。由于蜜蜂能够使用它们的舌头来适应可能最广泛的进食环境，以利用每一种可能的液体来源，因此舌头的表面特性，特别是覆盖的毛发，很可能代表了一种进化优化。在本文中，我们表明它们的舌毛是坚硬的和疏水的，这后者是非常出乎意料的，因为该结构是为了液体捕获而设计的。我们发现，这种疏水性可以防止那些坚硬的毛发附着在柔软的舌头上，这可以显著提高蜜蜂在各种表面上进食时舌头的可变形性，并促进它们对不同环境的适应能力。这些发现弥合了表面润湿性和结构特征之间的关系，这可能为设计用于输送粘性液体的柔性微结构化纤维系统提供新的思路。
