Hydration affects the physical and mechanical properties of baleen tissue.

ABSTRACT: Baleen, an anisotropic oral filtering tissue found only in the mouth of mysticete whales and made solely of alpha-keratin, exhibits markedly differing physical and mechanical properties between dried or (as in life) hydrated states. On average baleen is 32.35% water by weight in North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) and 34.37% in bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus). Baleen's wettability measured by water droplet contact angles shows that dried baleen is hydrophobic whereas hydrated baleen is highly hydrophilic. Three-point flexural bending tests of mechanical strength reveal that baleen is strong yet ductile. Dried baleen is brittle and shatters at about 20-30 N mm^-2 but hydrated baleen is less stiff; it bends with little force and absorbed water is squ

SUBMITTER: Werth AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5099004 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature